Sen. Hillary Clinton calls for equal assistance to gays after attacks

Sen. Hillary Clinton told a crowd gathered for HRC’s national dinner: "Domestic partners should enjoy the same benefits afforded other couples." (by Denise Watkins)

http://www.nyblade.com/frntpage.htm

by Lou Chibbaro Jr.

More than 2,200 people attending the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Washington dinner erupted in applause Oct. 6 when U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said gay victims of the September terrorist attacks should receive the same relief benefits as other victims.

"Domestic partners should enjoy the same benefits afforded other couples, whether we’re talking about health insurance benefits, inheritance, property taxes" or "support and assistance" for victims and survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Clinton said.

Clinton delivered the keynote address at the $250-per-person, black-tie dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel. HRC Communications Director David Smith said the event grossed $500,000. HRC, with 250,000 members, is the nation’s largest gay political organization.

Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) and D.C. congressional Del. Eleanor Homes Norton (D-D.C.) also addressed the gathering. Others who spoke included three surviving partners of gay people who died in the attacks, including the partner of the American Airlines co-pilot who died in the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon.

Acclaimed actor Cherry Jones, who appeared recently in the television film "What Makes a Family" with Brooke Shields, also addressed the HRC dinner, and brought to the stage surviving family members of gay victims in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. (by Denise Watkins)

Gay activists in New York have expressed concern that some private and government-sponsored relief agencies might withhold benefits and financial assistance to domestic partners of gay victims of the World Trade Center collapse. According to activists monitoring the situation, some relief agencies said they were legally bound to restrict their disaster relief programs to married spouses and their families.

The Stonewall Community Foundation, a gay charitable organization in New York; Safe Horizon, a New York-based charitable group; and the Red Cross have each said they will provide assistance to domestic partners of gay victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

HRC asked participants in the group’s Oct. 6 dinner to contribute to an "HRC Foundation Relief Effort," said HRC spokesperson Smith. Smith said the HRC relief effort will disburse 75 percent of the money it raises to the Stonewall Community Foundation and other groups committed to providing disaster relief help to surviving "gay family members" from each of the terrorist incidents of Sept. 11. The remaining 25 percent of the donations, literature said, would go to "advocacy efforts to ensure equitable treatment of GLBT families affected by the Sept. 11 events." HRC’s Smith said that that most, if not all, of the 25 percent would go to HRC’s lobbying efforts to ensure that overall relief efforts by all organizations, including the government, are available to partners of gay victims and other family members.

The HRC Relief Effort has so far raised $15,000, most from the Oct. 6 dinner, but part by HRC board members separate from the dinner.

In her speech before the HRC dinner, Clinton urged HRC members and others in the gay community to join her effort to push for changes needed to ensure that "domestic partners who lost their loved ones in the terrorist attacks" receive the same government and private sector support as married spouses.

"One of my hopes is that out of these tragedies and the extraordinary unity that we have experienced as a nation will come a greater awareness and recognition as to who Americans are," Clinton said.

"Just as some of the victims of the terrorist attacks were gay and lesbian Americans, so were some of the heroic rescue workers gay and lesbian Americans and so are some of our courageous men and women who wear the uniform of our country."

HRC’s Smith said the path to accomplishing Clinton’s vision includes working with private relief agencies such as the Red Cross, which has already given assurances that gay partners of victims will be eligible for assistance. It also includes lobbying Congress to consider revising an airline industry relief bill to include provisions allowing gay partners to seek compensation similar to that now available to surviving spouses of victims.

Elizabeth Birch said the Sept. 11 attacks "forged our hearts together and vaporized the differences between us." (by Clint Steib)

The airline relief bill, which Congress passed in record speed two weeks ago, puts a cap on monetary damages that may be won against American and United Airlines through lawsuits filed by surviving family members of the Sept. 11 attacks. The legislation also allows surviving spouses and family members to apply for compensation without filing suit. Smith said HRC wants this provision revised to allow surviving domestic partners to be able to seek the same non-litigation compensation. Clinton did not specifically mention this at the dinner but it is that believed she will be supportive of this effort, Smith said.

HRC officials said they agonized over whether to hold the dinner in the wake of the terrorist-inflicted tragedies that took the lives of more than 5,000 people. HRC Executive Director Elizabeth Birch said the group’s board and staff decided to proceed with the event, with the aim, among other things, of showing that gay Americans are in full solidarity with all other Americans at a time of national crisis.

"An extraordinary thing happened on that horrible day," Birch said. "In an instant, America became whole. The flames of terror forged our hearts together and vaporized the differences between us."

Birch said HRC understands that the crisis has forced Congress to postpone some the nation’s domestic policy priorities, including gay civil rights and hate crimes prevention legislation. But Birch said HRC would continue to push for this legislation as well as other issues likely to arise in the wake of the terrorist attacks, such as the issue of fairness for gays in the military.

"As gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans, many of us have known from a young age what it is to be teased, taunted, brutalized or killed -- simply for who we are," Birch said. "But in these days, there is a way in which that feeling of vulnerability has blanketed America."

"I suspect the gay community of our nation has a thing or two to share with America about facing down fear and safeguarding our cherished values of honesty, integrity, strength, and the dream of equality," she said. "These terrorists wanted to tear us apart, but they have only brought us together."

Oregon’s Sen. Smith, the lead Senate sponsor of a hate crimes prevention bill, said he was hopeful the bill would become law in the near future. Smith told how he decided to become an outspoken supporter of the hate crimes bill as well as the gay civil rights bill known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act after the murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.

"It was the tragedy of his murder that caused me no longer to just be kind and to be tolerant but to try to help," Smith said.

The hate crimes bill authorizes the federal government to prosecute hate crimes based on a person’s sexual orientation, gender, or disability.

In keeping with the national spirit of unity and bipartisanship following the terrorist attacks, virtually all speakers stressed patriotic themes. The dinner began when singer Parris Lane sang "America the Beautiful" while giant video screens, dispersed throughout the sprawling ballroom, showed scenes of the World Trade Center rubble, firefighters and police officers grieving over the loss of their colleagues, and Americans of all walks of life participating in memorial services honoring those killed in the attacks.

Many in the room wept openly when the surviving partners of gay victims in the attacks came on stage and addressed the crowd. They included Tom Hay, partner of David Charlebois, the co-pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon; Nancy Walsh, partner of Carol Flyzik, a passenger on one of the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center; and Mike Lyons, partner of Jack Keohane, who died after being struck by falling debris at the World Trade Center.

Sen. Hillary Clinton
476 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-4451
fax: (202) 228-0282
http://clinton.senate.gov

This article appeared in the issue of:
October 17, 2001

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