Fast Track and Marriage Equality

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank Congresswoman Coleman for yielding time, and I thank her for organizing this Special Order and for her leadership on this issue. She is a new Member, but not a new person to public service, not a new person to leadership, not a new person to fighting for the rights of every American, and I thank her very much for her leadership, her commitment, and her courage.

I also want to thank, Mr. Speaker, the LGBT Equality Caucus for its powerful advocacy on this issue.

The Supreme Court next week is hearing more than just an argument about same sex marriage. It is considering a question fundamental to what it means to be an American.

Our Nation, as we say so proudly, was founded on the premise that all people are created equal--not the same, but equal--irrespective of the differences. Our Declaration of Independence, as all of us quote so often, says:

``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men''--of course, if Jefferson were writing today, it would be either all people or all humankind--``are created equal, that they are endowed by''--not a Congress, not by a Constitution, not by a will of the majority--``their Creator''--by God--``with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.''

That, of course, has not always been America's performance, notwithstanding it has been its promise.

Next week, the highest Court in our land will be asked to consider whether these words apply to same-sex couples who love one another. Many courts have already said that it does.

Marriage equality provides same-sex households vital legal protections and economic security that we would ask for ourselves. Marriage equality would mean that approximately 250,000 children in America who are being raised in same-sex households will see their parents receive equal treatment.

One of those families is led by--or perhaps his partner would say he leads it--Sean Patrick Maloney, with three beautiful, loving and loved children. I have seen them all together. They are a happy, healthy family.

Study after study has shown that children of same-sex households are doing as well as their peers from opposite sex households academically, psychologically, and socially.

Marriage equality also means spousal benefits for those who share their lives with and care for their same-sex partners. Marriage equality will mean that same-sex couples, Mr. Speaker, can make medical and end-of-life decisions for their loved one.

These are tangible benefits. These, I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, are the pursuit of happiness. They are tangible benefits and ought to be treated equally under the law in every State of our Union--not in 28, not in 48, but in all 50 and the District of Columbia.

Thanks to the extraordinary courage of millions who have come out to their friends and families, which took a lot of courage, and spoken with their neighbors and coworkers, a majority of Americans now agree that every loving couple ought to be treated equally and have their right to marry recognized.

I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, I have three daughters. I have three grandchildren. One of my grandchildren is an adult. All four of those women would say to me: Dad, why is it any of our business who somebody else loves, who somebody else wants to commit to? Why is that our business? Why does it make a difference to us?

What makes a difference to us is how they treat us, whether they obey the law, whether, as Dr. Martin Luther King would say, the content of their character is such that we ought to respect them, not because of the difference of the color of their skin, their gender, their nationality, their religion, or their choice of whom they want to love.

Born equal, endowed by God with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Is there a happier time in one's life than when one pledges themselves to another? We all gather, we all celebrate, we all wish them well.

LGBT Americans now have the right to marry and have their families treated equally in 37 States and the District of Columbia. In the remaining States, however, LGBT residents are watching the Supreme Court with great anticipation.

Hopefully, the Court will do as Earl Warren's Court did in Brown v. Board of Education, saying that separate is not equal. Treating people here differently than people here--who love one another--is not equal.

Tens of millions of Americans stand with our friends in the LGBT community in support of marriage equality and believe, as I do, in a ruling in support of the lower courts that have again and again sided with same-sex couples and have said that the law requires, the Constitution requires, that we do in fact live out our promise of treatment on an equal basis.

We need to bring those words of the Declaration of Independence closer to their full realization, Mr. Speaker. Hopefully, the Court will do that.

Mr. Speaker, I am from the State of Maryland. I was proud to join in sending an amicus brief to the Court in March, arguing that the State bans are unconstitutional.

In my State of Maryland, our legislature carried out what Mrs. Coleman and I have said: equality means equality. We passed marriage equality.

Mr. Speaker, some folks didn't agree with that and petitioned it to a referendum. I am very proud of the citizens of Maryland. They were the first State to say in a referendum at the polls, We believe equality means equality, and passed this resolution and confirmed that law.

I thank the gentlewoman from New Jersey, a leader in that State, a leader in our Nation, for leading this Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, I hope we will be able to return to this floor over the summer to praise a ruling by the Court that I anticipate will be historic and accurate and one that our Nation can be proud of for generations, indeed, centuries to come.

Our Nation made a promise in our Declaration of Independence. Our Nation has not always met that promise. Indeed, we have struggled to realize the reality of that promise.

In my lifetime, Martin Luther King, Jr., brought that compellingly to America's attention. In his lifetime, the President whom the majority leader in this House just last week heralded as one of the great figures, great giants in American history, Abraham Lincoln, called the attention of his generation to the gulf between the promise and the practice in America.

It resulted in a war in which we lost more lives in America than any other war in which we have been involved: the Civil War. It is sad that we had to fight. It is sad that we lost lives. But we have redeemed, to some degree, the promise of treating people based upon the content of their character.

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