Gays Slurred in Congressman’s Speech

In the second disparaging remark made about gays this year by a member of Congress, Rep. Randy Cunningham, in a speech on the House floor, referred to Democrats who oppose revamping the Clean Water Act as “the same ones who would put homos in the military.”

In a statement issued later, Cunningham (R-San Diego) said he used the offensive term as “shorthand” for the word homosexual because he was “under time pressures to complete my statement within the allotted time.”

The remark by the three-term conservative congressman, a decorated Vietnam War fighter pilot and air combat instructor, set off a war of words that brought lawmakers swooping to the House floor and infuriated gay rights groups, one of which dismissed him as “a Neanderthal.”

It began during discussion of Republican efforts to revamp the Clean Water Act, which could ease clean water regulations and would save Cunningham’s San Diego district about $5.5 billion. Cunningham said Democrats who oppose altering the environmental legislation are “the same people who would vote to cut defense $177 billion, the same ones who would put homos in the military.”

When Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) leaped to her feet in protest, Cunningham turned and fired: “Sit down, you Socialist.”

While Cunningham railed about the “lunacy” of Democrats who would undermine defense readiness, Bernard Sanders of Vermont, the House’s only elected independent, took the floor. “My ears may have been playing a trick on me, but I thought I heard the gentleman say something about ‘homos’ in the military.”

“Absolutely,” Cunningham declared.

“What is the gentleman talking about?” Sanders went on. “The thousands and thousands of gay people who have put their lives on the line in countless wars defending the country?”

Cunningham attempted to steer the discussion back to the bill at hand, but his opponents pressed on. Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, who is gay, was not present to hear the remark but raced to the floor when informed of it.

“The time is over when I will let that kind of gratuitous bigotry go unchallenged, and I take the floor simply to express my contempt for the effort to introduce such unwarranted and gratuitous slurs on the floor of this House,” Frank said.

Cunningham said he had “used the shorthand term” for homosexuals and said, “I should have been more careful.” But he denied that he had made a bigoted statement.

“It’s this member’s opinion that homosexuals in the military do not do service to the national security of this country,” he said. “. . . A personal opinion that it degrades the readiness of the military is not a bigoted statement.”

Later, aides to Cunningham said he was not referring to Schroeder as a Socialist but to Sanders, who once held office as a member of that party. They released a statement that reiterated: “I should have used the term homosexual ,” but made no direct apology.

Cunningham’s was the second deprecating remark against gays by a Republican legislator since the 104th Congress convened in January.

The earlier incident involved House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who publicly referred to Frank as “Barney Fag.” Armey later said the offensive word was an accidental sound that came out as he mispronounced Frank’s last name, but his explanation failed to stop an ensuing political firestorm. Gay rights groups called his comment “deplorable and dangerous.”

Activist groups were equally outraged by Cunningham’s words late Thursday, and one suggested that he be expelled from Congress.

“It has gotten to the point where politicians use outhouse-type language about minority groups in the corridors of power,” said Donald Suggs, spokesman for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in New York.

Attorney Charles Bumer of the San Diego-based Military Law Task Force said: “It’s mind-boggling that anybody would be such a Neanderthal to say something like that. I think the House should expel him.”