Bob Hattoy died this weekend. He was a very brave man. I remember watching his 1992 speech at the Democratic convention. It's easy to forget the context, but it was ground breaking. In stark contrast, a couple weeks later at the GOP convention, Pat Buchanan launched the culture war that many Republicans are still waging.
In January of 1993, I was very excited to meet Bob when he was working with my sister, Karen, on the Clinton-Gore transition. That was when I was just starting to come out and Bob had the courage to tell the world his story. For years after I moved to DC, he was my neighbor on Kalorama Road. I didn't know him well, but he did make a major impression on me. It's not often you meet people who actually made history.
One person can make a difference and Bob Hattoy was one of those people. The DNC posted the text of his 1992 speech:
Thank you. I love you. Thank you, California. Thank you, Gay and Lesbian community. Thank you, Congresswoman Pat Schroeder. Thank you, Aretha Franklin, God.
I am here tonight because of one man's courage and conviction, one man's dedication and daring and yes, one man's true kindness. He's my boss, Bill Clinton. (Applause)
You see, I have AIDS. I could be an African American woman, a Latino man, a 10-year old boy or girl. AIDS has many faces. And AIDS knows no class or gender, race or religion, or sexual orientation. AIDS does not discriminate, but George Bush's White House does. (Applause)
AIDS is a disease of the Reagan-Bush years. The first case was detected in 1981, but it took 40,000 deaths and seven years for Ronald Reagan to say the word "AIDS." It's five years later, 70,000 more dead and George Bush doesn't talk about AIDS, much less do anything about it.
Eight years from now there will be 2 million cases in America. If George Bush wins, we're all at risk in America. It's that simple. It's that serious. It's that terrible. (Applause)
(Chants of "No second term!")
This is hard. I'm a Gay man with AIDS and if there's any honor in having this disease it's because it's an honor being part of the Gay and Lesbian community in America. (Applause)
We have watched our friends and lovers die, but we have not given up hope. Gay men and Lesbians created community health clinics, provided educational materials, opened food kitchens, and held the hands of the dying in hospices. The Gay and Lesbian community is an American family in the best sense of the word. (Applause)
President Bush, we are a million points of light; you are just too morally blind to see us. Mr. President, you don't see AIDS for what it is - it's a crisis in public health that demands medical experts, not moral judges - and it's time to move beyond your politics of denial, division and death. It's time to move George Bush out of the White House. (Applause)
We need a President who will take action, a President strong enough to take on the insurance companies that drop people with the HIV virus, a President courageous enough to take on the drug companies who drive AIDS patients into poverty and deny them lifesaving medicine. And we need a President who isn't terrified of the word "condom." (Applause)
Every single person with AIDS is someone worthy of caring for. After all, we are your sons and daughters, fathers and mothers. We are doctors and lawyers, folks in the military, ministers and priests and rabbis. We are Democrats, and yes, Mr. President, Republicans. We are part of the American family and, Mr. President, your family has AIDS and we're dying and you're doing nothing about it. (Applause)
Listen. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. But I don't want to live in an America where the President sees me as the enemy. I can face dying because of a disease, but not because of politics.
So I stand here tonight in support of Bill Clinton, a man who sees the value in each and every member of the American family. And although I am a person with AIDS, I am a person with hope, because I know how different my life and all our lives could be if I could call my boss Mr. President.
Martin Luther King once said that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Fifty thousands people took to the streets in New York today because they will no longer be silent about AIDS. (Applause)
Their actions give me hope. All of you came here tonight; millions more are watching in America. Obviously, we have hope and hope gives me the chance of life. I think it's really important to understand that this year, more than any other year, we must vote as if our life depends on it. Mine does; your could - and we all have so much to live for. Thank you.
(Standing ovation)
Act Up. Fight Back. Fight AIDS. Thank you.
