The Bible, if we are quoting the Bible, has told my children, my husband and me for our lifetimes, as did our parents, that we are all God's children. They did not say you are all God's children, depending on your sexual orientation. They said we are all God's children, and, as such, worthy of respect, and that in every person there is a spark of divinity that is to be respected. It is that attitude toward people that I think drives many of us into the political arena to do God's work. I do not like to bring politics and religion together, but it is to respect what our religion teaches us, that we want everyone to have the same opportunities, whatever their color, their creed or their sexual orientation.
Discrimination has no place in our country.
Neither does characterization of people because they might be different from us have a place. So I come to the floor tonight not to criticize, but to reach out to the two majority leaders, in the hope that we can put a stop to these characterizations which, as I say again, and I will say for a third time, may be unintentional, but are, nonetheless, very painful to the people that are described by them. Jim Hormel is a great American. He is a patriotic American. He is somebody who would bring great honor to our country to represent us abroad.