Issues of the Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the colloquy earlier. I have listened to comments here during debate. I have seen comments made in the media by some of the folks here in the House over the vote that was taken, basically, on an anti-hate resolution that was originally intended to address anti-Semitic remarks that were made by a Member of the House.

Yet, instead of addressing the anti-Semitic remarks, it was made a global, general: Oh, we are against almost all hate--well, not all hate. Apparently, not the kind of hate for Republicans that would cause our minority whip, Steve Scalise, to be shot and almost killed; not the violence being perpetrated on supporters of President Trump, including on college campuses. But even they, as horrendous as they were, have no moral equivalence to the Holocaust.

Expanding the resolution from a simple condemnation of anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic remarks to a panoply of other items--actually attempted to give everything ever done to anyone, except a few hate-filled actions, of course--attempting to give them the moral equivalence of the Holocaust where none exists, that is tragic.

And then to compound that regrettable action by the majority in trying to please everyone, instead of standing up and calling out anti- Jewish, hate-filled remarks, biased, bigoted remarks, then came here and condemned those of us who call them out for not standing up against anti-Semitic remarks and accuse us of being hate-filled because we took a principled stand against anti-Semitic remarks that needed to be singularized, needed to be addressed, needed to be condemned.

And not only that, to come in and also take the occasion to slander Steve King, saying: Well, he should have been called out 10 years ago.

No allegations, no specifics. Let's just generally slap somebody down because we don't like them; we don't like what they have said.

This is outrageous. This was no place for any of those actions, any of those comments, and I deeply regret people for whom I have had respect who would come in here and try to draw moral equivalence to every little action.

Look, I bet most of us--I know a lot of us have had plenty of death threats. We have had plenty of nasty comments made. But we don't go running to the media every time somebody threatens to kill us or somebody makes these outrageous threats or allegations.

The Holocaust was different. The suffering caused during the years of slavery in the United States really were unforgivable. It was a horrible thing to inflict on anybody.

I was shocked to find out here in February that there are more slaves in the world today--40 million--than there have ever been in the world's existence. That is horrendous.

We ought to take actions to stamp out slavery wherever it is, against whatever race or nationality, whatever. It has no place in the world.

But we know what leads to a Holocaust, the killing of millions of Jews simply because they were Jewish. It starts with maligning comments against Jews.

At first people will say, you know, that is really not appropriate. But then it gets watered down to where, well, there are a lot of bad comments against all kinds of people. You know, we are not for any of those.

And that is where we find ourselves this week in the House of Representatives. It has started.

People in this body knew which Members have made anti-Semitic feelings known in the past, so it is kind of hard to imagine that anybody would put someone who has espoused very strong anti-Semitic feelings in the past, put them on the committee where they can do the most damage to Israel and our relationship with Israel and then act like they had no idea: Let's just say that there are problems with all kinds of hate.

Well, there is a problem with not calling out the kind of comments that start the ball rolling toward another Holocaust.

Those of us who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and believe, as it says up here, in that God we trust, that is the God it is talking about. That is why Moses, his full face, is up here in this body, because of the respect for the moral laws that he gave.

But there is a danger to any civilization, any country, that will not call out anti-Semitic comments when they happen. It is not enough to put in language so that if you accuse somebody of anti-Semitic comments because they have actually made them, but they happen to be of a certain race or religion, then you get condemned. They say, oh, you are against this race, or you are against this religion, because you called them down for their anti-Semitic remarks.

That resolution yesterday leaves that kind of ambivalence out there and available to people who make anti-Semitic remarks.

It needs to stop. It needs to be called out before this body loses its moral relevance to make a difference in the world.

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