Political Quotes

“I am proud to support this bill that sends a clear signal about United States policy with respect to discrimination, especially violent, murderous discrimination against a whole class of people because of their ethnicity and/or religion. But the significance of this bill is much more profound; it moves us forward in terms of our self-definition as Americans. Our history is pockmarked with violent discrimination against groups that ``got in the way.'' Groups that challenged us to improve on the prevailing self-definition at the time. From Native Americans who were dehumanized, Chinese Americans denied citizenship and naturalization as a group in our immigration laws, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Irish-Catholics discriminated against by Abolitionists. The intent of this bill goes to our self-definition as a nation, something every generation must revisit. By enshrining this in our State Department as a priority policy, that will be propounded with other nations, we make ourselves better too. We live up to our ideals as a people. I hope we rise above the partisan temptations to score points at the expense of a whole class of people, at the expense of people all around the world who we have never met but count on us to do the right thing on their behalf. This bill is important for those people who can't find their own voice, because they have been denied it, but let's use ours on their behalf.…”