R.I.P. Teddy Kennedy, you were one of the few voices in the senate speaking up for LGBT rights!
Passionate Voice for Gay Rights Stilled
Son of privileged, rough and tumble Irish Catholic family, Kennedy was urgent advocate on AIDS, equality
On July 12, 1996, the US House of Representatives, caught up in a sudden nationwide frenzy about the prospect that the Hawaii state courts might be moving toward legalization of marriage by same-sex couples, passed the Defense of Marriage Act in a 342-67 vote.
On September 10, the Senate followed suit, in an 85-14 vote, and eleven days later, President Bill Clinton signed the measure into law.
Among the 14 senators, all Democrats, who stood against the prevailing political gale was an old Massachusetts sailing aficionado, Ted Kennedy, the state’s senior senator.
On October 3, the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA), New York’s LGBT lobbying organization, held its fifth annual fall dinner at Manhattan’s Grand Hyatt Hotel. The scheduled speakers were Mayor Rudy Giuliani and George Stephanopoulos, who was then the president’s communications director.
At that time, before national political ambitions led Giuliani to repudiate his support for ending the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell military policy and in favor of civil unions, the former mayor was working to burnish his credentials as a moderate, and had embarked on what ESPA termed “a more productive dialogue” with the group. A year later, ESPA would stay out of the mayor’s race, and Giuliani, grateful that his Democratic opponent had not gotten the group’s nod, finally embraced what at that time was a landmark city domestic partnership law.
But in October 1996, many gay activists saw nothing to be gained from dialogue with Giuliani, and several dozen picketed outside the event. The mayor’s speech inside was generally received politely, even warmly by some, but there were loud hecklers as well.
Stephanopoulos was supposed to be on hand to introduce a video message from Clinton, but at the last minute he was unable to leave Washington. The video presentation went ahead, with Clinton lamenting the defeat in the Senate the month before, by a 50-49 vote, of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Clinton pledged, if reelected, to fight for passage the following year, but in fact the Senate has never approved the measure, which throughout its legislative history was always shepherded by Kennedy.
The president made no mention in his video remarks of his having signed DOMA.
In lieu of Stephanopoulos, Kennedy was dispatched to New York to serve as the evening’s chief Democratic speaker. He was greeted like a conquering hero. His passion, vigor, and emotional connection to the crowd that evening recalled the electrifying concession speech he had offered at the Democratic National Convention 16 years earlier, also in New York.
In an interview with NY1 News, Christine Quinn, the out lesbian speaker of the New York City Council, recalled just how singular an event Kennedy’s appearance at the 1996 ESPA dinner was.
“It was a remarkable thing in the ’90s to have a man like Ted Kennedy in New York stand with the LGBT community and declare our efforts part of the civil rights movement,” she said.
Ted Kennedy was the first US senator to publicly voice his support for marriage equality for same-sex couples. During the early years of the AIDS crisis, when funding to address the epidemic was often late in coming and mired in the politics of the culture wars, Kennedy brought his unique stature on the health care question to bear in playing a leadership role. His was a vigorous voice in opposition to the innumerable anti-gay riders the late Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina tried to attach to legislation, particularly in the late 1980s and early ’90s.
When the US Senate considered a federal marriage amendment pushed by former President George W. Bush as a centerpiece of his 2004 reelection drive, Kennedy stood up on the Senate floor and said, “We all know what this issue is about. It's not about how to protect the sanctity of marriage, or how to deal with activist judges. It's about politics and an attempt to drive a wedge between one group of citizens and the rest of the country, solely for partisan advantage. We've rejected that tactic before, and I'm hopeful that we will do so again.”
Scott D. Gortikov, the executive director of MassEquality, the group that led the successful drive to protect the state high court victory for gay marriage in Massachusetts from being overturned, released a statement saying, “Senator Kennedy's commitment and leadership on fighting for equal rights is unmatched. He rallied against discrimination during the beginning of his career nearly half a century ago and worked to promote marriage equality as recently as this summer.”
Joe Solmonese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, the Washington-based LGBT lobby, in a written release, was unstinting in his praise of Kennedy.
“The nation has lost its greatest champion and strongest voice for justice, fairness, and compassion," he said. "The loss to our community is immeasurable. There was no greater hero for advocates of LGBT equality than Senator Ted Kennedy. From the early days of the AIDS epidemic, to our current struggle for marriage equality he has been our protector, our leader, our friend. He has been the core of the unfinished quest for civil rights in this country and there is now a very painful void.”
