VIDEO: HRC President Joe Solmonese at the 2009 Los Angeles Gala Dinner
March 17, 2009
Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese reminded our members and supporters at HRC's Los Angeles Gala Dinner and Hero Awards on March 14 that the journey to full equal rights for LGBT Americans is one that, like that civil rights movement for racial equality in the 1960's, will require "the same kind of same kind of senseless, selfless determination from every one in this room and every single member of our community all across this country. " Joe's speech was a fitting prologue to National NAACP Chairman Julian Bond taking the stage to boldy declare that gay rights are civil rights and that the LGBT community isn't asking for "special" rights to want to be free from discrimination. Joe's closing words at the Los Angeles dinner from Dr. Martin Luther King's speech at the Tenth Anniversary Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) are particularly poignant as we await the California Supreme Court ruling on Proposition 8: "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." Here's the full text of Joe's speech:
