Equality Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I regret that the Chamber is not full of Members or that the gallery is not jammed with people, for this is a historic day.

Many Members have quoted that extraordinary doctrine of civil rights and human rights articulated by our Founders 243 years ago: ``We hold these truths to be self-evident.'' I tell people that they may be self- evident, but they are not self-executing.

Today, we will take another step in a long journey toward a more perfect Union. Today, we will take a step, and, hopefully, it will be as it was in 1957 when we passed the Civil Rights Act that year; hopefully, it will be as it was in 1964 when we passed that civil rights bill; and, hopefully, it will be as we voted on the Disabilities Act in 1990.

All of those bills were passed in a bipartisan fashion; and, yes, there were bipartisan votes against those bills, some from my party and some from my colleagues on the Republican side. My presumption is, and my hope is, that those who voted ``no'' on those civil rights bills looked back and said: I made a mistake. That was not the vote I should have made.

Every Democrat will vote for this bill. Every Democrat will stand up and say this is another step in the quest for a better America, a more just America, a more accepting America. That is what we have the opportunity to do today.

I hope that many, if not all, of my Republican colleagues will stand not for party, not for policies of party or partisanship, but stand for principles enunciated 243 years ago but still not yet fully realized.

That is what this day is about.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill, which I know will pass, but I hope, as I have said, it passes with a very strong bipartisan conviction and confirmation of the fact that ``we hold these truths to be self-evident.'' This is an opportunity for the House to come together and reject discrimination and exclusion.

I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the bill that Mr. Cicilline put forward. The Equality Act is about America. It is about who we are, what we are, and what we believe.

I want to commend the LGBTQ community and the Equality Caucus for being at the forefront of promoting full equality, equal justice, and equal opportunity for LGBTQ people and their families in this country.

The world looks to us as the strongest supporter, historically, of human rights and equal rights. Have we always been so? No, we have not.

My party was the segregationist party for many years, and we said no to that. We walked away from that. We said that was not the party we were going to be.

Of course, all of us were not members of that part of the party, but this day, we should all stand and say, yes, we believe that all men and all women and all people are created equal, by God, and endowed not by the Constitution, not by this body, but endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the right to live as you are.

Yes, we make judgments on what you may do, but not who you are. You may be Black; you may be White; you may be a woman; you may be a man; you may be a homosexual; you may be a lesbian; you may be a trans; you may be anything other than what I am; but you are entitled, from me and from your country, to respect and equal treatment, as we said 243 years ago.

Sadly, some States still permit discrimination against LGBT people in those areas that have been discussed. We need to put an end to that and ensure that all people in this country, no matter where they live, are protected against hate and bigotry, exclusion and discrimination. The opportunities this country offers must be open to everyone in our country.

When I first ran for office in 1966 for a seat in the Maryland State Senate, fair housing was the issue, and the proposition was you didn't have to sell your house to somebody whose color was different than yours even though they had the ability to buy it and they wanted to move into that neighborhood.

This issue that we consider today is different in particular, but not in principle. That idea is at the very core of our American society: that opportunities exist for all of our people.

Throughout our history, we have reinforced this idea with the passage of the 14th Amendment, the 19th Amendment, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and others. We uphold this commitment to a fair and more just society with passage of this Equality Act.

Surely, we ought to be able to agree. Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, Northeast, South, and West, surely, we can agree that all men and all women are created equal and are deserving of equal treatment.

Let's come together to make that promise of our Founders ring true.

The Bible says, ``Love your neighbor as yourself.'' Not love your straight neighbor, not love your Christian neighbor, not love your White neighbor, not love your native-born neighbor, not love your neighbor of some other distinction, but, ``Love your neighbor as yourself.''

That means, in my view, love your gay neighbor, love your lesbian neighbor, love your trans neighbor. It means love your Muslim neighbor; love your Jewish neighbor; love your African American, Latino, and Asian American neighbor; love your immigrant neighbor.

Love your neighbor, not your hyphenated neighbor, because we are all created equal.

Martin Luther King, a century after the Civil War, said to America that we are not living out the promise of America. He called us to conscience. He called us to be America. He called us to be that light to the rest of the world.

So today, we say we will judge on content of character. We will be America. We will be the best we can be of America.

Like we did on so many of the civil rights bills that have come before us, again let us vote overwhelmingly to confirm America's promise to its people and to the world. Vote for this critically important statement of America's values.

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