Political Quotes

“I want to thank our majority leader for his leadership on this issue. It is an honor for me to stand here with my colleagues today to protect marriage. To my colleagues who oppose this amendment, they want to argue that marriage is a right that should be extended to relationships beyond those of one man and one woman. They want to claim that the effort to protect marriage is about discrimination. Mr. Speaker, I have a statement I want to enter into the Record. It is from one of Boston's most respected African American leaders, Reverend Richard Richardson of the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, standing in support of marriage, working to help protect marriage. The statement is as follows: ``As an African-American, I know something about discrimination. . . . The traditional institution of marriage is not discrimination. And I find it offensive to call it that. Marriage was not created to oppress people. It was created for children. It boggles my mind that people would compare the traditional institution of marriage to slavery. From what I can tell, every U.S. Senator--both Democrat and Republican--who has talked about marriage has said that they support traditional marriage laws and oppose what the Massachusetts court did. Are they all guilty of discrimination?'' Mr. Speaker, there is an emotional appeal to their arguments, but we are not here to legislate on emotion, and this is not comparable to the civil rights movement.”