Pelosi Remarks at Press Conference in Support of Equality Act
"Good morning, everyone. I feel so at home – I told Mr. Boo that. He said, when you walk into that all, you'll probably hear booing. He took great pride in saying it was for him.
[Laughter]
"Thank you, thank you for all that you do provide the warm welcome, the safe atmosphere, the respect for our LGBTQ+ community.
"To my colleague, Congressman Deutch: everything you said about Wilton Manors – vis a vis San Francisco – the Mayor already told me that.
[Laughter]
"Mayor Resnick already told me that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for your great leadership in this regard.
"To Bruce – I said to Bruce – he said, ‘I'm LGBT at a certain age here.' I said, ‘Let's get our picture taken together' – a ‘certain age' picture. Aren't we proud of him? You have been so incredible.
[Applause]
"We have children and seniors and everything in between – all more than worthy of our respect. People always say to me – and I say this to my colleagues – ‘Oh, you're from San Francisco. It's easy for you to be for these things because people are so tolerant there.' And I said, ‘Don't use the word ‘tolerant' with me. That's a condescending word to me. This is not about tolerance. This is about respect. This is about taking pride.' So, it's wonderful to be in this PRIDE family with all of you today.
"Thank you to the members and official family who are here, to the PRIDE family who are here as well.
"We're here to talk about the Equality Act, but I just want to lead up to it for a few moments, if you have a few moments. I know I'm standing in between you and lunch, so I'll be quick.
"Here's the thing: first of all, when I went to Congress, it was about HIV/AIDS and all of that, ending the discrimination and increasing the funding for research, prevention, care, etc. And I mention that first because the action – the activity of AIDS action at that time really laid the path, the foundation for all of the successes that would follow in the LGBTQ+ community. So, I thank anyone who was involved in that AIDs action because that was really what I went to Congress to do.
"In fact, my first speech on the floor – they said, ‘Do you want to say anything?' when I was sworn in. I said, ‘I told my constituents that when I came here, I would tell you that I came here to fight for funding for HIV/AIDs, etc.' Members came up to me afterwards and said, ‘Why would you want to be known for that?' And I thought, ‘Oh my God. We have a problem here.'
[Laughter]
"You have a problem. We don't. But in any event, just to say that AIDS action really paved the way.
"So, we have four things on our agenda that working with the community, priorities and many things, but the priorities we could take legislative action or other action on – one was, as was mentioned by the distinguished gentleman, Mr. Deutch, was the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. The second one was the repeal of ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. The next one was ENDA. And next, to do whatever we could for marriage equality, but that was, as you know, more of a courts issue, but we wanted to show friendship in the Congress on that.
"So, again, I want to just talk to you about that a little bit to fit the Equality Act into that.
"Because of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ted Deutch – let me talk about Ted for a moment because he has been a leader introducing, even me, to some stronger initiatives in terms of Chair of the LGBT Aging Issues Task force. Way to go on that. He is the Vice-Chair of the LGBT Equality Caucus. He has a seat at the Leadership table, as the top Democrat on the Ethics Committee; he is on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Judiciary Committee.
[Applause]
"When he spoke about what is happening in Chechnya – I'm going to get to that moment. But I see the respect he commands here – I want you to know the respects he commands in the Congress of the United States.
[Applause]
"I needed to appoint him to the Holocaust Museum Commission because the Holocaust Museum is about all of the people – the Jewish community, the LGBT community and the rest who were affected by the Holocaust. We were very proud that Ted Deutch accepted that honor.
[Applause]
"Debbie, as you know, is a force of nature. I always admire her work that she does as a young mom in Congress, being an example to women across the country. They can see someone who has shared their experience. A working mom – their working mom – at the head of the table as the Chair of the Democratic National Committee and as a force – what we call a ‘cardinal' – in the Appropriations Committee. That means she is really powerful, and we have to kiss her ring.
[Laughter]
"So, the first thing we're going to do is pass the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes bill. Barney Frank was so instrumental. Matthew's mother came – she was so wonderful and the rest of that. But, we had a little trouble moving the bill.
"Now, we had the majority, but still other people can obstruct. So, they came to me, and we were very excited because I gave you the agenda – the four things that we were determined to do. So, they came to me and said, ‘You could do this in a minute if you took out transgender.' I said – Debbie, Ted and others joined me in saying, ‘We're not going to do it in a hundred million years.'
[Applause]
"So, we were very, very proud when we were able to pass that very significant legislation. It's so important. And people learned a lot in the course of the discussion. And that is part of the Equality Act as well.
"Next thing is: ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. Don't tell anybody I told you this.
[Laughter]
"This is what happened. We had been working, working, working to get the votes, and it required us to – it took a lot. And by the way, President Obama was magnificent in that fight.
[Applause]
"We initiated that with Congressional action. Now, I was in San Francisco on May 4th – Harvey Milk's birthday – while we were issuing a stand in honor of Harvey Milk. And I said to the people there, ‘By Christmas we will repeal ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell'.' So, here is the thing: we had the vote, we win. We get a big, strong vote. We even got some Republican votes – an amendment to the Defense Department authorization bill. But, we didn't get many Republican votes. We got like seven.
"So, I went to the Barney Frank's, the Barbara Lee's, the John Lewis' – you name it, the liberal contingent, which I am a member, and I said to them, ‘We're making history today.' And they said, ‘Yes, we're going to repeal ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell'.' I said, ‘No, not only that. But in order to do that, you all, liberal friends, are going to vote for the defense bill.' ‘Never. We never voted for the defense bill.' ‘You never voted for the defense bill? Well, you're going to vote for it today' because I can see it in their eyes – this is what I do – I can see it in their eyes, the Republicans were not going to vote for the defense bill because we have this amendment in it. You remember this.
"And they said, ‘Oh never. The Republicans always vote for the defense bill. They always vote for the defense bill.' So, I said, ‘Okay, just stand in the back' because we have never – we have a perfect record, we're going to keep our record perfect, I said ‘yeah.' And if you do, we will take down the amendment we just passed. So, we take the vote, nine Republicans voted for the defense bill because it contained the repeal of ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. What, over 170 something of them voted against the bill because it had the repeal of ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. So, there they go down the center aisle, John Lewis, our, Barney Frank, Barbara Lee, you name it, all down there to make history and vote for the first time in their careers for the defense bill. So, I want you to know that some people made some sacrifices they did not expect to make in the interest of passing that wonderful bill.
[Applause]
"A lot happened after that where we had to divide it out and all the rest, but anyway we got the job done. The courts, as you know, moved on marriage equality, oh my gosh so exciting, so we had this end of, let's end any discrimination in the workplace. And we thought why are we doing ending discrimination in the workplace? We've got every other category that we've got to deal with. So, Debbie and Ted, Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz and Congressman Deutch, very much a part, and as I say, Ted being a Vice Chair of the Equality Caucus there. Now we're going to amend the Civil Rights Act. This is something we do not do lightly. This is something that people are very protective of because, in this atmosphere that we're in once you open something up you never know what someone might want to subtract or whatever. So, we do this with great care.
"And I am just going to tell you how proud I am of Ted and of Debbie and their work on this. David Cicilline of Rhode Island is the lead sponsor on it. Relentless, persistent, dissatisfied just, let's just do everything right away and that's great, and Senator Merkley in the Senate is the co-sponsor there. So, here's the thing. We have to now engage the Congressional Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, all the groups that are protected in the Civil Rights Act, but they knew it was the right thing to do. And here's the statement that I just want to read you from Julian Bond. Julian Bond, a great civil rights leader as you know, and just shortly before he died he said it's time to take action to end this discrimination. It's time to add concrete protections for LGBT people to existing civil rights law, ensuring that sexual orientation and gender identity enjoy similar treatment as religion, national origin and race. When he came out for marriage equality it was a big deal. He was chairman of the NAACP. And we had worked in the community, let's put it that way. And that was a big deal. This was a very, very big deal, for him to make that statement. So, that's why we're so proud of the leadership of Debbie and Ted, if I may call them by their first names, since we're all family here. 193 Democratic sponsors of the bill. That is remarkable. That is remarkable.
"And it was bipartisan. It was bipartisan. And we believe that if the Speaker would bring the bill to the floor we would get the 218 votes to pass it. Right Ted? I mean Ted has his finger on the pulse of this because being on the caucus and the senior caucus as well, because it has ramifications for schools, for seniors, for everyone. So, what we need you to do, I can't show up without a call to action. What we need you to do, you're all, everybody born in Wilton Manors? We need you to reach out to your friends who are constituents of Members of Congress, there's nothing more eloquent to a Member of Congress than the voice of his or her own constituents. Right? So, you have to call home. Or call, and plenty of fertile territory in Florida by the way, to call them because as they hear from their constituents they will know that people not only believe but are acting upon their beliefs and that this is important, and why, you're either with us or you're not on this. And let me tell you one thing, not to be discouraging or anything. We know that Donald Trump has not been as forward leaning as we would like on this. That's called diplomacy. He's abroad and I'll wait until he comes home to say anything about him. But, the Republicans in Congress are worse. Right? They've been there longer, more intensely, with every kind of a thing that they bring up on any bill about contracting and the Defense department, whatever it is. Whatever it is. So, understand this. They are worse. So, you have an important job to do, is to figure out how you approach these Members of Congress so that they know that people in their districts care and are acting upon these issues. And when you do so, and we get this passed, and we will. And we will. We will not only be doing the right thing for the LGBTQ+ community. We will be doing the right thing for America. We will make America more American.
"A great President, President Lincoln said public sentiment is everything. With it you can accomplish almost everything, without it almost nothing. And public sentiment is with us on this. So, you have to make sure those calls go into those offices and hold those elected officials accountable. All we want is a vote, we think that we would win if we had the vote in the House of Representative.
"So, as I said, I would reference back to Chechnya, Monday, Monday, I mentioned one President, President Lincoln. Another martyred President, Monday is the 100th birthday of John F. Kennedy. So, I was at his inauguration. You're all too young, you read about it in history books. You read about it in the history book, but I was there as a student, so history to you was my youth. But in any event, in his speech, everybody in the world who studies America knows, and everybody in our country knows, that in his speech he said to the citizens of America, Ask not what your country can do for you but can you can do for your country,' which we know, we can all recite it. The very next sentence, the very next sentence in the speech takes me back to Ted Deutch. And I am going to yield back, Ted. He says, to the citizens of the world: ‘Ask not what America can do for you, but what we can do working together for the freedom of mankind.' For mankind, that freedom, freedom, what a great world. Freedom to the LGBTQ+ community, freedom in Chechnya – and aren't we happy about what happened in Taiwan when they took the vote to support [LGBT rights]?
[Applause]
"This is personal, it's local, it's statewide, it's national, it's global. And we have to have, we knew in San Francisco when we started the AIDS fights 30 years ago that if we were going to succeed locally we had to act globally and vice versa. And so, this is really about who America is. So, we want the face of America that really is committed to freedom, and as the mayor had us pledge the flag, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you everyone."