LGBTQ Pride Month

Floor Speech

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, and still I rise. And I rise tonight to continue to make my payments on a debt that I owe.

I am the son of the segregated South. I know what invidious discrimination looks like. I know what it sounds like. I know what it tastes like. I know what it smells like. Because I have suffered invidious discrimination, I want no one else to suffer what I have suffered.

I rise tonight to pay a debt because I didn't get here by myself, and the people who look like me, we didn't get here by ourselves. Along the way there were people of different stripes who made a difference, such that we could have the opportunities that we have today.

So I am proud to say that I am an ally of the LGBTQIA caucus. I am proud to say that I am a member of the congressional LGBTQ-plus Equality Caucus. And I am proud to say that Mr. Cicilline is a person who I have great respect for, a person who is making a difference not only in the lives of people who are a member of the community, the LGBTQIA community, but also persons across the length and breadth of the globe, because when you help some directly, you help all indirectly.

I thank Mr. Cicilline for this preeminent privilege to stand tonight and to be a part of making the world a better place for others. I desire, if I may, to continue.

I want to make the world know that the caucus that I am a member of, the LGBTQ-plus Equality Caucus, has 170 members. The caucus was formed in the 111th Congress. Today, we have introduced the original LGBTQIA- plus Pride Month resolution. This resolution encourages the celebration of the month of June as LGBTQIA-plus Pride Month. It tracks the accomplishments and the milestones and the fight for LGBTQIA-plus equality. It has 187 cosponsors, minus the 100. It has 87 original cosponsors.

This resolution is endorsed by the National Center for Transgender Equality, PFLAG National, the National LGBTQ Task Force, and the Transgender Foundation of America.

We introduced the first LGBT Pride Month resolution in 2013. This resolution had 25 cosponsors. We have introduced a Pride Month resolution in every Congress since 2013.

In 2020, the LGBTQ Pride Month resolution had 62 cosponsors. This year, the resolution has 87 original cosponsors.

Now I would like to just discuss some seminal moments in Pride history. June marks 52 years of Pride celebrations across the country. It was in June of 1970 that the first Pride march took place in New York City to commemorate Stonewall Inn, the site of an act of resistance in June of 1969.

In 1977, Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected public official in the U.S.

In 1980, the Democratic Party became the first major American political party to endorse a gay rights platform.

In 2000, Vermont became the first State to recognize civil unions between same-sex partners.

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled sodomy laws unconstitutional.

In November of 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Justice Court ruled that preventing gays and lesbians from marrying violates the State constitution.

In 2008, California voters passed proposition 8, a public referendum ending same-sex marriage in the State.

In 2009, Congress passed the Matthew Shepard Act, expanding hate crime laws to include acts motivated by a victim's actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

Between 2009 and 2011, Vermont, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, the District of Columbia, and New York legitimized same-sex marriage.

In 2010, President Obama officially repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell, allowing gays, bisexuals, and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down California's proposition 8 and the Federal Defense of Marriage Act.

On June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition against sex discrimination laid out in title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act applied to LGBTQ Americans.

Houston, Texas, has a history that we are proud of. We remember the uprising at Stonewall because it marked the beginning of a movement to outlaw discrimination and laws that prohibited LGBTQIA persons from having the same rights as other persons in this country. Nearly a decade after the resistance displayed in New York at Stonewall Inn, the gay rights movement for equality made its way to Houston, Texas.

Houston's own Stonewall movement occurred in June of 1977, when thousands gathered around city hall in downtown Houston to protest an infamous antigay activist who was performing in Houston, Texas. According to OutSmart magazine, more than 4,000 protesters marched around the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where the event was held.

The first Houston Pride parade took place in June of 1978, along Westheimer Road; and more than four decades later, it has become the fourth largest Pride parade in the country.

This resolution that we have presented to the House today is one that we will continue to present. We will continue to present it because it is not only the right thing to do, but it is the righteous thing to do.

No person in this country should be treated in such a way as to be defined as mistreated simply because of who they are. We have a right to be ourselves, and we should never be put in a position such that it is perceived that being who you are is inappropriate in a country that extolls the virtues of liberty and justice for all, that extolls the virtue of all persons being equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In this country, every person ought to be proud to celebrate Pride Month.

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