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Sexual Orientation Issues Page
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
- March 24, 1994 -
H2027
(statement by Congressman Frank on sexual orientation school counceling)
IMPROVING AMERICA'S SCHOOLS
ACT OF 1994
(House - March 24, 1994)
[Page: H2027]
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the
requisite number of words.
Mr. Chairman, I want to join the Republican mayors of Los Angeles and
New York, Mr. Reardon and Mr. Giuliani, in opposing this amendment.
The Hancock amendment would cut off all Federal aid to the schools of
New York, presided over by Rudy Giuliani, whose office authorized the
statement of his opposition. It would cut off all aid to the schools of Los
Angeles. Do the Members know why? Because those schools have tried,
and two Republican mayors of those cities have continued to try, to
respond to some of the unhappiest children in America.
I am struck by this debate about promoting homosexuality. I have to tell
the Members, and I think I have had as much experience about it as almost
anybody in here, if you paid me to promote homosexuality, I do not know
what I would do. How do you promote homosexuality? What do people
think it is, a rock concert? A prize fight? How do you promote
homosexuality? What shallowness of understanding of basic human nature
leads Members to talk about promoting homosexuality, encouraging
homosexuality? What do they think it is, a taste for food?
In fact, people in New York and in Los Angeles and in other schools who
understand human nature and understand human sexuality know that there
are 15- and 16- and 17- and 18-year-old children who are tortured by
feelings they cannot control in a society that condemns them. They have
reached out to those children. They have established schools that say to
those kids, `You are not worthless,' that would not subject those children
to the kind of treatment that one of the Members sought to subject another
Member to on the floor. That is the kind of insensitivity and bullying that
exists. We know that.
Yes, I suppose if we have a 16- or a 17-year-old whose feelings are
homosexual and cannot turn them off, like a water faucet, despite the
shallowness of the understanding that some people in here have of human
nature, if we take that kid who has been abused and who has been picked
on and put him in a more supportive environment, then we lose our money.
How do we dare support that kid? How dare we tall her she is not
worthless? How dare we try to say that the person should not be
discouraged from going on with their life? That is what we are talking
about.
The literature that is being given out, and some Members here have more
interest in it than I do, that literature, if it is the literature talked about in
New York by the Gay Men's Health Crisis, was rejected by the
chancellor. That is why it is irrelevant to the gentleman's amendment. The
chancellor of the schools in New York, Mr. Cortines, said that literature is
no good. That was not in there by the schools. The schools repudiated it.
What they do have in New York, in Los Angeles, under Republican
mayors, in San Francisco, is an effort to reach out. Let me say to the
Members, I think most Members understand that this kind of attempted
imposition on people who are trying to help young people is not good
public policy.
People worry about the politics. We all understand politics. Nobody
parachuted in here totally pure. However, may I please entreat my
colleagues, do not torture children. No vote is worth that. No vote is worth
adding to the pain of these teenagers. Please vote against the Hancock
amendment.
[Page: H2028]
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