Political Quotes

“when I was first elected to this body, if someone had told me that in the first year of the 21st century, the U.S. Congress would be on the verge of passing a bill making it lawful to discriminate with taxpayer funds, I wouldn't have believed them. I would have told them that too many had fought too long for us to backtrack in the battle against bigotry. Yet that is exactly what this bill does, and that is exactly what we are trying to undo with this Democratic substitute. I am astonished the Bush Administration would fight so strenuously to extend the right to discriminate in employment on account of religion. If government funds truly will not be used in a non-sectarian manner-- as the Administration claims--why in the world would we want to permit discrimination on the basis of religion? I've been asking this question for the last month, and have yet to receive any semblance of an adequate response. Every Member in this body knows that cooking soup for the poor can be done equally well by persons of all religious beliefs. But the Administration has bent over so far backwards to make sure we do not discriminate against religious organizations, that somehow they forgot about protecting the actual people--the citizens--against discrimination.”