Not all of Abraham Lincoln’s words are eternal. A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by New York Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand seek to make more inclusive the mission statement of the Department of Veterans Affairs by changing the current excerpt from Lincoln’s second inaugural address.
Rice teamed up with a group of 67 bipartisan lawmakers last year for a similar effort to “update” the VA mission statement to be more inclusive of women and LGBT veterans and their survivors. That effort passed the House unanimously and stalled in the Senate Veterans Affairs committee. The VA would be given six months to change all references to the current mission statement, which calls for removing the word “his” and replacing it with the gender-neutral words “those” and “their.”
Lincoln’s original statement, enunciated March 4, 1865, read: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”
The proposed new phrasing would read: “To fulfill President Lincoln’s promise to care for those ‘who shall have borne the battle’ and for their families, caregivers, and survivors.”
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Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who often fights for the rights of female service members, said the change is about honoring all who have served the nation.
“Women, members of the LGBTQ community and their families are vital members of our military,” she said in a statement Thursday announcing the introduction of the Honoring All Veterans Act.
Gillibrand noted the support of Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The act is also endorsed by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Minority Veterans of America, and the Military Women’s Coalition.
“Everyone who has served and sacrificed for the sake of our freedoms should be recognized and honored by VA’s core mission,” Murkowski said in a statement.
The post-9/11 veterans group IAVA said the change would mean much to female veterans.
“This is something that we’ve been working on for years,” IAVA Executive Vice President Tom Porter told the Washington Examiner Friday.
“This is one of the provisions that women veterans came to us, and they said, ‘You know, we’d like to feel more welcome in our VA,’” he explained. “This would be a small gesture that would go a long way in terms of setting the tone from the top down.”
Porter said women represent the fastest-growing segment of the veteran population. He also made the argument that Lincoln’s words were never meant for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“These words were from decades and decades, almost a century before they actually were used at the VA,” he said. “They are in no way in connection with what Lincoln thought in terms of care for women veterans or veterans as a whole.”
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In a written statement to the Washington Examiner, the VA stayed above the political fray.
“VA leadership continues to review this very sensitive matter,” the VA said.
