[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 129 (Thursday, October 6, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2018-E2019]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          JULIAN BOND AFFIRMS THAT GAY RIGHTS ARE CIVIL RIGHTS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 6, 2005

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, for more than 45 years, 
Julian Bond has provided leadership in the fight against prejudice and 
its terrible effects in the United States. From his early days as a 
student leader, to his current position as Board Chair of the NAACP,

[[Page E2019]]

with distinguished elected service in between, Julian Bond has been in 
the forefront of the fight for justice in America. Given his 
extraordinary leadership in the struggle against discrimination based 
on race, and given the efforts of some to argue that the fight against 
homophobia is somehow entirely different from the fight against racism, 
Julian Bond's eloquent, forceful defense of the right of gay, lesbian, 
bisexual and transgendered people to be treated fairly is noteworthy.
  On Saturday, October 1, Mr. Bond addressed another important civil 
rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign, at the HRC's Washington 
Dinner. His speech, not surprisingly for a champion of human rights, is 
a strong defense of the right of people to be free from prejudice based 
on their sexual orientation, and an explicit affirmation that the fight 
against racism and the fight against homophobia have a common basis.
  As he said in that speech, ``denial of rights to anyone is wrong, and 
. . . struggles for rights are indivisible.''
  Mr. Speaker, because of the eloquence of his repudiation of the 
effort to divide those who fight against racism from those who fight 
against homophobia, and because of his extraordinary stature in the 
fight to make sure that the rights spelled out in our Constitution are 
in fact fully enjoy by everyone, Julian Bond's words at the Human 
Rights Campaign Dinner deserve the attention of every Member of this 
body, and I ask that those remarks be printed here.
       I am more than honored to receive this award, and want to 
     express my thanks to all responsible for it. I want to 
     promise you that I intend to live my life as if I actually 
     deserve it.
       I believe it represents a common acknowledgement that 
     denial of rights to anyone is wrong, and that struggles for 
     rights are indivisible.
       I feel tonight a little like the great abolitionist 
     Frederick Douglass must have felt in April, 1888. Douglass, 
     by then an old man, was addressing a women's convention in 
     Seneca Falls, New York. They praised him for his devotion to 
     the cause of women's suffrage. Forty years earlier, at the 
     world's first Women's Rights Convention, when Susan B. 
     Anthony made a motion that American women had the right to 
     vote, it was Douglass who seconded the motion.
       In 1888, Douglass reflected back on that moment and told 
     his audience, When I ran away from slavery, it was for 
     myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; 
     but when I stood up for the rights of women, self was out of 
     the question, and I found a little nobility in the act.
       You have all made me feel noble tonight.
       I am proud to represent an organization that has fought for 
     justice for all for nearly 100 years, and while we've won 
     many victories, we know--you know--there are other battles 
     yet to be waged and won.
       At the NAACP, we were proud to have opposed the federal 
     marriage amendment and its wrong-headed versions in several 
     states. President Bush backed amendments banning same-sex 
     marriage, calling marriage ``the most fundamental institution 
     of civilization.''
       Isn't that precisely why one should support, not oppose, 
     gay marriage?
       The NAACP recently passed a resolution to strengthen 
     families, including yours. We promised to ``pursue all legal 
     and constitutional means to support non-discriminatory 
     policies and practices against persons based on race, gender, 
     sexual orientation, nationality or cultural background.''
       We know there was a time, not so long ago, when black 
     people in this country couldn't marry the person of their 
     choice either. The California Supreme Court was the first, in 
     1948, to strike down laws prohibiting interracial marriage.
       Now the California legislature has become the first to 
     legalize gay marriage.
       As California goes, so goes the Nation. It's just a matter 
     of time.
       Almost twenty years after California legalized interracial 
     marriage, the United States Supreme Court heard the aptly 
     named case Loving v. Virginia.
       A married couple--Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred 
     Jeter, a black woman--won a ruling from the Court that 
     Virginia's miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. That 
     case enabled me to get married in Virginia. That case 
     recognized marriage as one of the inviolable personal rights 
     pursuant to happiness.
       That's why when I am asked, ``Are Gay Rights Civil 
     Rights?'' my answer is always, ``Of course they are.''
       ``Civil rights'' are positive legal prerogatives--the right 
     to equal treatment before the law. These are rights shared by 
     all--there is no one in the United States who does not--or 
     should not--share in these rights.
       Gay and lesbian rights are not ``special rights'' in any 
     way. It isn't ``special'' to be free from discrimination--it 
     is an ordinary, universal entitlement of citizenship. The 
     right not to be discriminated against is a common-place claim 
     we all expect to enjoy under our laws and our founding 
     document, the Constitution. That many had to struggle to gain 
     these rights makes them precious--it does not make them 
     special, and it does not reserve them only for me or restrict 
     them from others.
       When others gain these rights, my rights are not reduced in 
     any way. The fight for ``civil rights'' is a win/win game; 
     the more civil rights are won by others, the stronger the 
     army defending my rights becomes. My rights are not diluted 
     when my neighbor enjoys protection from the law--he or she 
     becomes my ally in defending the rights we all share.
       For some, comparisons between the African-American civil 
     rights movement and the movement for gay and lesbian rights 
     seem to diminish the long black historical struggle with all 
     its suffering, sacrifices and endless toil. However, people 
     of color ought to be flattered that our movement has provided 
     so much inspiration for others, that it has been so widely 
     imitated, and that our tactics, methods, heroines and heroes, 
     even our songs, have been appropriated by or served as models 
     for others.
       No parallel between movements for rights is exact. African-
     Americans are the only Americans who were enslaved for more 
     than two centuries, and people of color carry the badge of 
     who we are on our faces. But we are far from the only people 
     suffering discrimination--sadly, so do many others. They 
     deserve the law's protections and civil rights, too.
       Sexual disposition parallels race--I was born black and had 
     no choice. I couldn't change and wouldn't change if I could. 
     Like race, our sexuality isn't a preference--it is immutable, 
     unchangeable, and the Constitution protects us all against 
     prejudices and discrimination based on immutable differences.
       Those whose bigotry is Bible-based selectively ignore 
     Biblical injunctions in Exodus to execute people who work on 
     the Sabbath and in Leviticus to crack down on those who get 
     haircuts or who wear clothes with more than one kind of 
     thread.
       Recently, they've even ignored the sanctity of marriage--
     just ask Michael Schiavo.
       Many gays and lesbians worked side by side with me in the 
     '60s civil rights movement. Am I to now tell them ``thanks'' 
     for risking life and limb helping me win my rights--but they 
     are excluded because of a condition of their birth? That they 
     cannot share now in the victories they helped to win? That 
     having accepted and embraced them as partners in a common 
     struggle, I can now turn my back on them and deny them the 
     rights they helped me win, that I enjoy because of them?
       Not a chance.
       In 1965, those of us who worked in the civil rights 
     movement were buoyed by a radio address given by Lyndon 
     Johnson.
       His words speak to us today. He said then:
       It is difficult to fight for freedom. But I also know how 
     difficult it can be to bend long years of habit and custom to 
     grant it. There is no room for injustice anywhere in the 
     American mansion. But there is always room for understanding 
     those who see the old ways crumbling. And to them today I say 
     simply this: It must come. It is right that it should come. 
     And when it has, you will find that a burden has been lifted 
     from your shoulders too. It is not just a question of guilt, 
     although there is that. It is that men cannot live with a lie 
     and not be stained by it.
       One lesson of the civil rights movement of yesterday--and 
     the on-going civil rights movement of today--is that 
     sometimes the simplest of ordinary acts--taking a seat on a 
     bus or a lunch counter, registering to vote, applying for a 
     marriage license--can have extraordinary ramifications. It 
     can change our world, change the way we act and think.
       Thank you again for this honor.
       The old ways are crumbling.
       It must come.
       Let us leave here determined to fight on until it does.

                          ____________________