Council Briefly Morphs Into Bible Study Group, Hilarity Ensues
Seriously, this has to be one of the best D.C. Council exchanges ever. Here's Harry Thomas, Jr. (D-Ward 5), during the debate this afternoon over a bill that would institute residency requirements for homeless people to access the city's shelters, which ended up passing by a 9-4 vote:
It is very hard for me to wrap my head around what we're doing here today. I grew up in a ward where there was a Capital City Inn, we were pushing people into shelters, who were committing murders and killing themselves through suicide and living in conditions that no one would want anyone living in. And yet, when we look at what's going on here in this bill, since we're going to talk about the entirety of this bill, there's been so much rhetoric about this that really puts us back to the Capital City Inn days. And I would ask people here, maybe the noble cause that we wanted to put families into family-like shelter situations has not been met. But to go this egregious step, especially when we talk about homeless -- let's not forget that as we approach Christmas, that there was someone we were celebrating that was homeless. And I think somehow, we must forget at this time of joy, that we have an obligation, especially during hypothermia season to open doors. ... I don't know about you, but I am not going to be the vote on this Council to determine that hypothermia season is the one season where we're not going to be the most humane government in the world. ... I hope my colleagues listen to what I'm saying carefully -- as we celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ, who was homeless.
Emphasis ours, obviously. This is excerpted from an passionate argument Thomas made about maintaining that anyone who needs help with ensuring shelter should be able to do so -- but, yeah, you can't just name drop Jesus like that and get away with it. Not with this group!
Councilmember David Catania (I-At-Large) attempted to refute Thomas the conventional way, telling him that the story of the virgin birth of Christ didn't really have anything to do with a bill that won't take effect until the spring -- at the earliest. But Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) had the definitive word on the subject:
Just for historical accuracy, Mary and Joseph actually had a house. In Nazareth. And they were actually traveling to Bethlehem because the government had raised their taxes and you had to pay the taxes in the place where you were born. If anybody ever saw that story -- I'm sure somebody did -- an onerous tax put on the population by Caesar, and so they had to travel to Bethlehem, and by the time they got there, there was no room at the inn. Everybody remember that?
Wow. Dropping knowledge on a Councilmember who decided to bring Jesus to the dais while at the same time making a statement about his stance on the budget gap? Well played, Mr. Evans, well played.
