GOP, Tea Party disassociate themselves from racial taunts

March 22nd, 2010 - 8:49 pm ICT by Pen Men At Work ( 1 comment )

March 22, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): Health care demonstrators who hurled racial and homophobic slurs at black and gay lawmakers on Saturday at the Capitol were condemned by the Republican Party officials and Tea Party protest organizers.

John Boehner, the House Minority Leader, R-Ohio, appeared on NBC on Saturday morning and felt that the actions of some of the protesters were blameworthy and that they shouldn’t represent Tea Party participants as a whole. The coordinator of the Tea Party Express agreed to it and felt that it was insulting because that’s not what all the other people in the movement were about.

Confrontations between supporters and opponents on Sunday were followed by the denunciations. The House of Representatives got ready to vote on the most extensive revamp of the nation’s health care system in two generations.

The Capitol was surrounded by protestors, both supportive and opposed to health care. Groups assembled in support of immigration revamp were also part of the crowd. A protestor who had managed to sneak into the House visitor’s gallery was subdued by six Capitol Police officers.

The demonstrations got ugly on Saturday when racial slurs and homophobic taunts were hurled by the opponents of the health bill at the members of Congress. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights icon and a 12-term congressman was called a ‘nigger’ and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a United Methodist Church minister and a former two-term mayor of Kansas City, Mo., was spat on by some of the protestors. One of the three openly gay members of the Congress, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., had to endure taunts.

The events that took place on Saturday night were condemned by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. He feels that members of the Congress need to take responsibility for sparking off the actions that took place on Saturday night.

After everything that happened on Saturday and despite the events’ condemnation, some Tea Partiers insist that the slurs weren’t shouted. They blamed Lewis and Cleaver and accused them of making up these stories. Some of them have claimed that Democrats fired the people up.

Edit (11:09 am EST) — fixes typo (Thanks Robert)

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One Response

  1. Robert Wilson Says:

    Hey you redneck losers, it is spelled Gay, not Gat! No wonder you hicks can’t understant the benefit of the Health Care Reform Act.

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