HRC Weekly Update from Joe Solmonese Joe Solmonese, Human Rights Campaign President [hrc@hrc.org]

Dear Daniel,

On Sunday we'll mark forty years since our community said "enough" and began what became known as the Stonewall riots. The 40th Anniversary of Stonewall inspires us to look back and form a picture of how far we've come. Yet as I write this, this week has shown us that our history, and with it our destiny, has been accelerating.

In just the past few months, we've witnessed marriage victories in Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, seen the Department of Justice defend DOMA, and read the President’s Memorandum on federal employee benefits. Late today, we learned that the Administration has moved another step forward in repealing the discriminatory HIV travel ban. HRC worked hard to pave the way in Congress for this regulation, and has been pressing the President to act. The impending end of this shameful and harmful ban is one more example of history moving forward, this time in the direction of fairness.

History is clearly moving faster than I can snap a picture. The subject won't sit still.

Nonetheless, it's an important moment to reflect on this journey. Forty years ago, being caught in a police raid of a gay bar was all it took to destroy a person's life. The June 28, 1969 police raid at the Stonewall Inn was one indignity too many. Riots ensued, but just as importantly, our community found its voice.

It was a voice that for many years rang out unaccompanied. Through those early years, we built community. We came out. We formed social and political networks. Then with the 80s came what some were calling "gay cancer," and we now know as HIV / AIDS.

And so for over a decade, until the creation of free-standing AIDS service organizations, advocacy groups and government support, every organization and every person in our community did nothing else but fight to keep people alive. Everyone was dying and relatively few were paying any attention. Again, we were alone. Even President Reagan, who would lose his good friend Rock Hudson to AIDS, wouldn't say the word, let alone react in a responsible way to this national and -- ultimately -- global tragedy. But we stood together, we harnessed the power of our anger, our commitment to each other, and our will to survive, and we made ourselves heard.

In the 90s, we had a friendly ear in the White House for the first time, but we also experienced the power of our opponents when "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act passed overwhelmingly, and were signed into law by the same president who had brought us new hope.

We faced 12 years of congressional leadership and eight years in the Oval Office when we were used as a political whipping post: whether through DOMA, the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), or blocking every measure designed to protect us -- including hate crimes protections supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people.

But by then we were less alone. We pushed state and local governments for non-discrimination laws and saw increasing numbers of us protected from being fired for who we are. We reached out to Corporate America, setting a new standard for equal treatment in family benefits and non-discrimination policies. Today, many state and local law enforcement officials support inclusive hate crimes legislation, and more than 60 major employers endorse a fully-inclusive ENDA. The broader civil rights movement stood up against the FMA, and supports us in our current work. In Congress, there is an LGBT Equality Caucus that includes both openly-gay members and straight allies.

We are no longer alone. Forty years after Stonewall, our lives are bound up in a larger community. It is not only new supporters and alliances, but a renewed understanding of our commitment to the great unfinished work of civil rights and social justice for all people.

As Dr. King famously wrote, "we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality." In this new era, our ties to one another are both valuable and inescapable. Within the LGBT community, this means that we do not rest until no one can be fired because of their gender identity. We do not rest until we have ended the discharges in the military. And we do not rest until every LGBT person can marry, and the federal government honors our marriages equally.

Our network of mutuality includes our neighbors, our co-workers, our families, and the American public at large. As people get to know us, they support us. We must show them who we are, but also hear their stories. Our country has fallen upon hard times, and we will all rise or fall together, but no one should feel a sense of double jeopardy simply because of who they are.

And finally, the 69 million voters who elected Barack Obama bound our destiny up in this presidency. To pass Hate Crimes and ENDA, repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell and DOMA, and promote the health of our community, we have to engage this Administration, and educate it about who we are. That is why I wrote the President expressing our community's deep disappointment in the Administration's defense of DOMA, and calling for action to repeal the law.

While we continue to press the President and Congress forward, we must also acknowledge each development that makes our lives better. HRC pushed hard on behalf of LGBT federal civilian employees and that's why I stood next to Frank Kameny, who was fired from his government job in 1957 because he is gay, as the President signed a memorandum protecting all LGBT employees from discrimination and improving the lives of many families in the civil and foreign services.

Forty years ago at Stonewall, our community made its voice heard as never before. Today, we must not squander a single opportunity to engage those with whom our destinies are intertwined. Our voices must sound out in our own communities, in state legislatures, in the halls of Congress, and, yes, in the White House. We honor Stonewall by never forgetting the work ahead and never missing an opportunity to tell our stories.

Warmly,

Joe Solmonese
President, Human Rights Campaign