Pete Sessions: “the Defense bill we are working on today is critically important for our Nation. We need to complete that bill. It is…”

“the Defense bill we are working on today is critically important for our Nation. We need to complete that bill. It is important for us not to be distracted from it by bringing up amendments about which people feel strongly and which may be important, but are unrelated to defense and not germane to the issue before us. I am glad we are able to at least proceed fairly promptly to a vote on this issue so that we can get back to the purpose with which we are dealing. We have soldiers in the field who are at risk this very moment. They need to know we are moving forward on business that relates to them, that deals with the issues that threaten their lives, and we need to make sure that we have every possible activity and report in this authorization bill to help them do their jobs better. I wanted to say that at the beginning. Sometimes these things happen, and we can offer amendments, but we do not need to do too much of this, in my view. I raise two points about this so-called hate crimes amendment, and the reason that I will be voting against it. Different people can have different ideas and different values about how we should deal with this issue. First, there is no legitimacy for any attack on any person because of their sexual orientation in America today. That is unacceptable behavior. It has always been unacceptable. We need to crack down on it aggressively.”