Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania, a distinguished member of the Rules Committee, for yielding me the time; and I want to thank her for her eloquent opening. Mr. Speaker, we are just weeks away from the 53rd anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous speech at the National Cathedral. That is when he uttered the powerful line, ``The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.'' In many ways, those words are as misconstrued as they are well-known, because some have taken them to mean that if you just wait long enough, justice is inevitable. Dr. King knew better, though. He knew that for the moral arc to bend, people needed to be courageous enough to actually bend it. Just 6 years after this line was spoken, Members of this Chamber showed that courage when they introduced the original Equality Act. They did so in the shadow of the Stonewall riots, at a time when even discussing LGBTQ issues publicly was seen by many as taboo. These Members recognized the fundamental unfairness in a patchwork of State laws being used to deny some Americans fundamental rights like jobs and homes, just because of who they were or who they loved. {time} 1400 They had the backbone to act, giving a voice in these hallowed Halls to the many advocates nationwide fighting for equality from the outside.…”