| Posted on March 8, 2004 "How can anyone legislate who you can love?..." THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS CONTINUES Remarks by Barbra Streisand Upon Her receipt of The Human Rights Campaign Humanitarian Award, March 6, 2004 � Barbra Streisand 2004 I have been fortunate to receive a few awards in my lifetime, and I always appreciate them, but I must say that this is a very special one because the gay community has supported me from the very beginning. I know that this is a challenging moment in your history. So I am very proud to accept this award from the Human Rights Campaign at this time. You are on the frontlines in the struggle for equal rights, even as continued prejudice stands in the way. The American Constitution is a magical document that has evolved over 200 plus years. While we revere it, it did not start out as a perfect document. This Republic was founded with a Constitution that counted slaves as three-fifths human. It took decades and a Civil War, the deadliest in U.S. history, to erase that stain upon our country. It took over 100 years to bring women into the political system by giving them the right to vote. Interracial marriage was illegal in some states until 1967. Now the Bush Administration wants to change the positive inclusive direction of our Constitution by calling for an amendment that authorizes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Well, I say, no way. Dr. Martin Luther King taught us that the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice. We must always go forward, towards greater liberty and greater equality, not backward. You know, for me, the realization that two people should have the right to form a sacred union regardless of their gender was strengthened when I saw a performance of the play The Normal Heart in 1985. After feeling the love those two men had for each other, I dare anybody not to want them to get married by the end. The law cannot dictate matters of the heart. When two people form a deep bond, there is usually a soul connection, and the soul has no gender. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are fundamental rights in this country. Happiness can be many things - a good meal, a good friend, a warm puppy, and certainly...love. How can anyone legislate who you can love? That is a human right, the right to love and be loved. And when you love someone, whether you're in a heterosexual or same-gender relationship, shouldn't you be able to visit them in the hospital when they're sick or dying? Shouldn't everyone have the right to enter into a loving, legally binding, committed relationship that takes on special responsibilities and obligations? Current civil union legislation doesn't go far enough in protecting equal rights. We must not deny gay families many of the benefits that help keep families strong...social security, pensions, veteran's support, inheritance, the right to take unpaid leave to care for a spouse...the list goes on and on. Instead of helping families, this president wants to spend a billion and a half dollars to bolster marriage. Turning government into a marriage counselor is a joke...a waste of time and money. It's not a policy; it's a diversion. But this administration regularly uses the politics of diversion to their advantage. They cleverly use divisive cultural issues to avoid talking about other serious problems, such as unemployment and healthcare. They go after Saddam because they can't find bin Ladin ... They want to send missions to Mars instead of protecting the Earth... Tax cuts for the wealthy instead of assisting the poor... You have to look at what Bush does, not what he says. Talk is cheap. He expresses empathy for military families and then cuts their benefits...He names a proposal "The Clear Skies Initiative" that pollutes the planet...He says he'll be a uniter and then drives us apart...He steals the slogan "No Child Left Behind" and then breaks his promise to fund his reforms. Truly, I stand here flabbergasted at what is going on in today's world. Never in my life have I witnessed a president and an administration that is so out of step with the needs of the country, so threatening to our future and so abusive in its use of power. The Clinton administration left this country with a budget surplus, and also a surplus in the goodwill we shared with our allies. Now we have a deficit in both. Before the war in Iraq, I went to hear Scott Ritter speak - he had been a weapons inspector for seven years. He told us there was no imminent threat to the United States, that the program to develop nuclear weapons had been dormant since 1998. There was no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda (one is a secular society and the other fundamentalist), that chemical weapons have a short shelf life and wouldn't be usable today...in short, everything Scott Ritter told us has turned out to be the truth. |
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