Political Quotes

“I say to my colleagues, we have had a very instructive discourse here today and quite revealing, I believe. As a result, this motion to recommit would simply safeguard the Federal, State and local civil rights laws as they presently exist. Mr. Speaker, bigotry and discrimination have been, unfortunately, our Nation's greatest curse for more than 210 years, and we should never, ever knowingly adopt legislation which would in any way worsen the problem, as the measure before us clearly does. So to my friends on the Republican side who urge that we might have created a more narrow motion, I say to them just this: It is just as wrong for the bill to set aside State and local civil rights laws as it is for the bill to set aside Federal civil rights laws. We need to fix both problems, and we need to fix them now and not in conference or some day later. So let us all of us stop trying to divide our Nation by religion, by race, by ethnicity, by sexual orientation. Let us pass a motion that I think most of us can agree on so we can increase the role of religion without trampling on our precious civil rights.”