Political Quotes

“I rise in strong support of this amendment. It is never too late to do the right thing. And that is the proposition that is before this House, the proposition that we are going to, as Barry Goldwater said, worry about whether people can shoot straight, not whether they are straight. What he meant by that is: Are they competent? Are they committed? Are they patriotic? Are they willing to fight? Have they trained well? Are they prepared to defend our country? That is the litmus test. Now, that wasn't always the litmus test. There were some times when that group over there could fight over there and the other group over here could fight over here because, after all, if we mixed those groups, it would be damaging to the national security. That proposition was wrong then and it is wrong now. We passed, some time ago, a defense bill. We passed a defense bill through this House. We adopted an amendment to that bill. That bill is still in the Senate. It is still in the Senate, very frankly, because the minority party has not allowed it to move. It has the votes to move; it simply doesn't have almost two-thirds to move. This May, the House approved the repeal of our Armed Forces' policy on Don't Ask, Don't Tell adopted some 17 years ago by a vote of 234- 194.”