Here's to the Violets: My Thoughts on Gay Rights (Video)

Here's the text of a speech I wrote with my friend Ron Marasco for the Human Rights Campaign's recent gala in New Orleans. The clip of it is below. Enjoy!

I am so happy to be with all of you tonight. To celebrate the work you do--and to have a bourbon or two later.

The great Tennessee Williams wrote---

--of course I'm starting with Tennessee Williams. I'm in New Orleans, at the HRC gala, and I played Blanche DuBois.

Which is why I never go anywhere without a paper lantern in my purse.

Tennessee Williams wrote a line that I felt was appropriate for tonight. And appropriate to this time in our history, your history, and to the rights that everyone in this room is fighting for. It is a line that meant so much to him, it's on his gravestone.

"The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks."

"The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks."

To me, its meaning is simple. The hard, the cold, the oppressive will--at long last--be broken apart by a force that is beautiful, natural, colorful, alive.

That's what tonight is about, what the people in this room are about. We're a bunch of violets breaking through the rocks.

And it is happening.

The rock is cracking away. The rock of hate and falsehood is being broken apart.

All across this country, regular Americans who were born and bred in towns where a gay couple wouldn't dare walk down a street--all over these American Main Streets--something is changing.

Blue-collar guys are looking up from their work, grandmothers are speaking up at the dinner table; and they are saying something to members of their family, and co-workers, who are against gay marriage.

They are saying in one, increasingly-loud American voice, "Honey, rather than worry about who someone else loves--and why, think about who you hate--and why!"

The violets are breaking through the rocks.

America has always been a country of common sense. A country of innate goodness--although a goodness that is sometimes slow to action. As Winston Churchill said, "Americans are always ready to do the right thing. After they have exhausted all the other possibilities."

We have exhausted all the other possibilities. And it is time to call an injustice an injustice.

It is an injustice that we send a gay or lesbian soldier to die in a war--to give their life for a country that won't let them be legally bound to the person they love.

It is an injustice that a soldier gives their life for a Military--an exemplary Military in every way--except one in which they cannot have the picture of their lover cut-out in the shape of a heart and taped to their locker because that would be "telling." Such a ugly word.

It is an injustice that, in this room, many of you pay your tax money to the very public institutions that deny you rights other Americans enjoy; pay your tax money for public schools that will not accept you as legal parents; pay your tax money for the paper on which they print the goddamn marriage licenses you cannot get.

And while you are paying your tax money for all of the above, a preacher can stand in the pulpit of a multi-million-dollar mega-church advocating the damnation of gay Americans and not pay one thin dime in taxes.

You know, I occasionally watch those preachers on the Christian TV stations.

I always think to myself: How can I believe your theology when I can't believe your hair?

I find it intellectually offensive when people shrink the Bible to fit the small-mindedness of their bigotry.

Leviticus 18:22 and Deuteronomy 22:5...the famous list of the "abominations." Bible verses which, by the way, also list as a mortal sin things like "the wearing of a garment made of two different kinds of fabric."

Yes, the Bible verse they use to condemn homosexuality also calls Polyester-blend an abomination.

Well, in this, perhaps the Lord has a point. But if you took away all the Polyester-blends in those mega-churches....most of the women would be naked.

In my Bible I see no evidence of Jesus telling same-sex couples they cannot love each other.

And he could have. He was a carpenter--if he made good furniture every gay man in Nazareth knew Him.

The fact is: it's happening.

All the violets--gay Americans, lesbian Americans, Bi-sexual Americans, transgender Americans, people of color, and the people of this city forgotten by Washington in hurricane Katrina--we are all are starting to break through the mountain of straight, white, male lawmakers in Washington.

Their time is over. And they know it. Which is why they are looking increasingly ridiculous and beleaguered. To me those guys look like one, big casting-call for the lead role in a very bad production of Death of Salesmen.

Because America is starting to say those lawmakers are wrong about "Don't ask don't tell," and wrong to oppose gay marriage. The way they were wrong, wrong, wrong about the war in Iraq.

A war that was created by who? A straight, white man named George W. Bush. A straight, white man named Dick Cheney. And a straight, white man named Condoleezza Rice.

The rocks are breaking. And it's time to call certain people on the hypocrisy of their stance against gay marriage.

Newt Gingrich: against gay marriage, but on his third wife.

That recent convert to an anti gay-marriage stance, Rudy Giuliani: third wife. Rush Limbaugh: vehemently against gay marriage and....yep, third wife. A third wedding that was performed by none other than Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas: second wife.

4 men, eleven marriages, and you must be lectured on love by them? This Mount Rushmore of Divorce!

Ladies and gentlemen, as all of you in this room know so well, political activism tells us now what history will tell us later.

The people who support "don't ask don't tell;" and who oppose "gay marriage" are wrong. And their children and grandchildren will know they were wrong.

This is the age of Obama. And the people who oppose these causes need to realize that. But there is someone else who needs to realize that this is the Age of Obama.

Obama.

It is time, Mr. President. Do not fall behind others on these issues. My God, Dick Cheney announced that he is in favor of gay marriage.

And on that very day, the National Weather Service reported hell froze over.

So Mr. President, please catch up. Or you are in danger of being considered "just to the right" of a man who is "just to the left" of Vlad-the-Impaler.

Newsweek magazine just said about gay marriage--and I quote: "This train's left the station. Time to get on board."

It is happening.

Something is changing.

Oh--there is still a lot of work to be done. But it will happen.

And when it does--when "Don't ask don't tell" is scrapped, when gay men and women can marry the people they love--when that day comes, people across this great land will be looking for a place to party.

And I say: Come on down to New Orleans! I'll be so happy I might swing naked in a window on Bourbon Street!

Me and Rachel Maddow!

Yes, across America we will celebrate because, at long last, that day will have arrived. But to the people in this room--that day will not only have arrived for you, it will have arrived because of you.

Thank you HRC. Here's to the violets.

Comments

[Bobby Milford]

AMAZING!!!

[Morcat]

A few million well-placed letters and e-mails might not hurt anything in this new DOMA support matter. I have mine ready to send to Holder and Obama today.

The time has come, and the pressure needs to be kept up.

[TampaStephie]

How awesome is Patricia Clarkson??? Amazing. I'm so disappointed in this new administration and their lack of concern over gay rights. They've sold us out terribly. Obama was supposed to get rid of "Don't ask, don't tell" and he has shoved it aside. I hope that he has a plan for the future, but for now, he is not supportive. I think he believes if he ignores us, we will go away.

As a side note, the mental picture of Patricia and Rachel swinging around after a few bourbons will keep me smiling all day long!

[AndybHoboken]

I agree with you Ms. Clarkson, main streets in America are changing for the better. Gays got tired of waiting. Tired of waiting until the time was "right" to come out of the closet for fear of being accepted by friends and family, tired of waiting until the time was "right" to raise a family with their partner, tired of waiting until the time was "right" to get married and secure themselves all the legal protections that straight families receive, tired of waiting until the time was "right" to serve their country openly, tired of waiting until the time was "right" to be elected to some of the highest political offices in the country. We're tired of people telling us to wait. To pull a quote myself, "If not now, when?" -M Ethridge.

Thanks for your support.

[amanda8]

A wise, irreverent and powerful speech! Patricia, please speak more. Keep hitting the point that Obama has fallen behind Cheney on Gay marriage. More and more Republicans are, one by one, wrestling the gay marriage issue away from the Democrats.
Somebody needs to write a script for you (Violets Breaking Through the Rocks) on the gay marriage crusade where you go to the mega-churches with your message.

[LJ Thrilla]

"The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks."

What a beautiful way to look at it and a fantastic speech.

[zest]

Dear President Obama, civil rights are not about your own personal beliefs. Personally you do not favor same sex marriage and it is not about you. You are disowning one group to garner favor with another group. This is not your job. Your job is to be president to all Americans and to protect their civil rights.

[madatnewsmedia]

Why is that? Civil rights were denied blacks for hundreds of years, so why are gays and lesbians any better? He's not disowning them and I'm sure the President understands what he's supposed to do as President. The rights that they are asking for has nothing to do with civil rights! He's all for same sex unions, but marriage, I don't think so!

[JohnJames]

Get a clue. No gay voters expected him to support federally recognized same-sex marriage (even though he himself was for it before he set his sights on the White House). We weren't even expecting support from him for federal civil unions. Most of us did trust him however - a fierce advocate of our civil rights in his own words - to keep his promises to repeal DOMA (now he's defended it in a brief that could have been written by a President James Dobson) and DADT and work for the passage of ENDA, among some eight or so explicit promises he made during the campaign.

[Maria Thomas]

ok - just because you don't want them to be civil rights doesn't make them into something else. and we as a country already learned that seperate is not equal. why is this so hard to understand?

[dm10003]

"Civil rights were denied blacks for hundreds of years, so why are gays and lesbians any better?"

if denial of civil rights is bad, then it's bad. and i doubt blacks would have chosen the long delay.

but then you say lgbt issues aren't civil rights to begin with.

and you forget that lgbt inequality has been around for thousands of years.

[Paulied]

And please remember, Mr. President, you put your hand on the Bible and promised to uphold the Constitution, not your hand on the Constitution to promise to uphold the Bible.

[onwisconsin]

I like this. I may borrow it, if you don't mind.

[plummaddie]

Simply beautiful speech and oh so true!

[rabiddog6708]

A great leader would champion the rights of all Americans. A politician will hedge his bets and play the angles. Too bad Obama is more the latter than the former.

[madatnewsmedia]

Oh, Please!

[scottowego]

C'mon Mr. President .... GET ON BOARD!!!!!!

[bobspice]

A very powerful speech, beautifully written.

[SFCubster]

WOW... One of my favorite actresses is now one of my favorite persons!

[MrBurlesk]

Isn't it time we all asked ourselves, "what will it take to MOTIVATE President Obama to fulfill his promises for us?" And do those very things to ensure his cooperation? I keep hearing people talk and talk and talk and mention things like Marches on Washington and being patient and forming new political parties...but what will it REALLY TAKE to make Barack Obama get his job done for us? I mean REALLY? And, in your mind, put aside whatever preconceived notions you have about how things "ought" to get done and dig deep and truly ask yourself, "what will it take to motivate Obama to make gay rights enough of a priority that we start seeing some ACTION on his part?" Because I get the sense that this man has thrown us under the bus for good with his defense of DOMA, no matter what kind of slick talk he dishes out of the other side of his mouth. And I would like him to prove me wrong. But I don't think he will. But, in the meantime, shouldn't we all ask ourselves, "what will it really, truly take to motivate Obama to do these things?" And then set ourselves about doing them.

[JDowlin1]

Bravo! My sentiments exactly!

[nycliberal2300]

This is one of the greatest violations of human rights in our country. The fact that people are openly denied the constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness, is deplorable, in a land where we pride ourselves on the declaration that all persons are created equal. President Obama needs to be a vocal supporter. It is outrageous to me that a constitutional law scholar is not more vocal about the denial of rights to gay couples. Love is a beautiful thing, and in a world of war, strife and struggle, we are actually going to deny people who love each other the right to the fullness of that love? The right needs to realize that they can not legislate their version of morality by continuously trying to infuse their moral thinking into their politics seeking to create a theocracy, not a democracy. Religion and politics are separate aspects of life. they can not impose their beliefs on others in a hope to inspire a "Christian" policy of legislative authority. Thomas Jefferson rallied in support of a seperation of church and state for this very reason. .It is time for Christians to start to act like Christians and embrace the messages of Christ, namely love, tolerance, and peace. It is time that the GLBT community receives their full constitutional rights to marriage. Just for full disclosure-I am a Heterosexual, I am a committed Catholic, and I am FOR Gay Marriage!