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To expand on Ezra's point as to the wisdom of bringing the debate over the Armenian genocide to the floor of Congress, Laurent Pech over at Jurist has a excellent point about the effects of legislating history:
My general position is that no Parliament should legislate to promote or worse, enforce particular historical truths.In France, the statutory characterization of the mass slaughter of Ottoman Armenians as a genocide led to the introduction in 2006 of several bills (yet to be adopted) whose purpose was to punish with criminal sentences those who “dispute” this characterization. Such content-based prohibition on free speech is certainly and thankfully unthinkable in the US, since the First Amendment precludes the government from prohibiting “the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable” (Texas v. Johnson, 491 US 397, at 414). Yet, the “mere” statutory recognition of the Armenian genocide may encourage diverse groups to lobby the US Congress to have their historical narratives enshrined in the law.--Phoebe Connelly
