WASHINGTON — Republican Party officials and Tea Party protest organizers Sunday condemned health care demonstrators who hurled racial and homophobic slurs at black and gay lawmakers Saturday at the Capitol.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, appearing Sunday morning on NBC, called the actions by some protesters “reprehensible” and maintained they were isolated incidents that shouldn’t reflect on Tea Party participants as a whole. Amy Kremer, coordinator of the Tea Party Express, agreed.
“I absolutely think it’s isolated,” Kremer told Fox News on Sunday. “It’s disgraceful, and the people in this movement won’t tolerate it because that’s not what we’re about.”
Saturday’s demonstrations turned ugly when opponents of the health bill confronted members of Congress with racial slurs and homophobic taunts.
It felt like early ’60s
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil-rights icon and a 12-term congressman, said demonstrators shouted “nigger” at him as he walked out of a House office building.
In 1963, Lewis, as the 23-year- old chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Com mittee, spoke at the March on Washington and was the youngest speaker at the historic civil-rights event. Nearly two years later, Lewis and other civil-rights activists led a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., that ended violently when Alabama state troopers attacked the demonstrators.
Lewis suffered a fractured skull in the incident that later became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Lewis led a congressional delegation on a visit to Selma two weeks ago to commemorate the 45th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.”
“Congressman Lewis has since remarked that what he encountered (Saturday) was reminiscent of what he experienced 45 years ago as a young man marching for freedom for all Americans,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, in a written statement Sunday.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a United Methodist Church pastor and a former two-term mayor of Kansas City, said protesters spat at him Saturday. Cleaver’s office said the U.S. Capitol Police arrested someone in connection with the incident, but Cleaver declined to press charges.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., one of three openly gay members of Congress, said he endured anti-gay slurs by a group of protesters.
Both parties condemn
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., condemned the incidents Saturday.
“Members of Congress and opinion leaders ought to come to terms with their responsibility for inciting the tone and actions we saw (Saturday),” Hoyer said in a written statement. “A debate that began with false fears of forced euthanasia has ended in a truly ugly scene. It is incumbent on all of us to do better next time.”
Republicans rejected any suggestion they would tolerate such slurs. However, they also said it was unfair to condemn all of those opposing health care reform because of the actions of a few.
