Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlewoman for her beautiful words and for her great support for the LGBTQ community. Madam Speaker, before I conclude tonight's Special Order hour, I want to make some final comments. We celebrate pride as a community and very often people think of pride celebrations as joyous public events with lots of people gathering. We just had a pride celebration in Providence last weekend. The estimates were that over 100,000 people attended. Part of the importance of pride is that it is a moment of great visibility for our community. For too long, members of the LGBTQ+ community were taught to be ashamed of who they are, to hide their true identity, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Pride was not only a time to celebrate the importance of our community but to be visible--to stop being invisible people but to be visible in the communities where we live and work. Over the years, we have had extraordinary leaders from our community in business, medicine, politics, the arts, education, and all areas of life. We have nine members of the LGBTQ community serving right here in the House and two in the United States Senate, examples of political leadership all across the country so that young people can see themselves in people who are accomplishing things in all areas of life--in the law, politics, medicine, and education. It is a time of celebration, but we have to acknowledge this year that we are facing great challenges as a community.…”