News :: GLBT
Former HRC director remembers Sen. Kennedy by Tim McFeeley
Contributing WriterWednesday Aug 26, 2009 Ted Kennedy’s leadership in defense of the civil rights and aspirations of LGBT Americans has been remarkable, and his death leaves us without our fiercest champion in the United States Senate. The value of one strong advocate in the Senate -- someone who will use every parliamentary, personal and political lever to preserve, protect and defend an issue -- cannot be overstated, and Senator Kennedy was the LGBT community’s lion-hearted advocate.
Whether working with Republican Senator Lowell Weicker to secure the first funding to care for people with AIDS, or standing up to the incessant, vile attacks on gay Americans and people with HIV/AIDS from Jesse Helms, or ensuring that all people with HIV are covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Ted Kennedy was the "go-to" Senator for LGBT Americans for over 20 years. Senator Kennedy was not deterred by a lack of political support; whether our side could deliver 50 votes or 5 in the Senate, and whether the public opinion polls favored the gay side or not, if Kennedy felt the issue deserved his support, he would hold the Senate floor as long as necessary to achieve the best result.
There are many examples that I recall from my tenure as executive director at the Human Rights Campaign. With support from Kennedy staff members like Nick Littlefield and Michael Iskowitz, we would often walk out of Senator Kennedy’s offices, devising strategies, walking the marble to lobby for votes, preparing witnesses, and drafting legislation and press releases.
One day in particular stands out in my mind: July 29, 1994, a hot summer Friday in Washington. The Employment Non-discrimination Act (ENDA) had its inaugural introduction just a few weeks before, and Senator Kennedy as Chairman of the Labor Committee scheduled a hearing on the bill for 10 a.m. We lined up outside the hearing room two hours in advance, and as the doors opened we had to jostle with a phalanx of right-wing ministers led by Louis Sheldon and his daughter Andrea who broke ahead of the line to try to pack the room. A scuffle and angry words brought Capitol police officers to restore calm, and before the hearing officially commenced Senator Kennedy had to denounce the uncivil behavior at a hearing to discuss civil rights. Here was the leader of every major civil rights bill protecting women, ethnic and racial minorities, and people with disabilities taking up the fight once again, this time to stop discrimination in the workplace against LGBT Americans.
It was a wonderful hearing for our side. Georgetown Professor Chai Feldblum, the principal drafter of the bill, explained what the bill would do and also what it would not do. Justin Dart, a disabled Republican businessman, who had led the fight for the ADA, testified on our behalf, as did Ernest Dillon, a gay African American postal worker, who documented acts of discrimination he had endured, not as a black man, but as a gay American.
But the hearing belonged to Cheryl Summerville, a short-order cook from Georgia, who had been summarily fired by her employer, Cracker Barrel Restaurants, simply because she was a lesbian. Cheryl was not a public speaker. She lacked any oratorical flair or memorable rhetoric. She was not an activist or an advocate. At times she spoke so softly she was difficult to hear.
What Cheryl did have was a gut-wrenching, personal narrative and total authenticity rarely witnessed in Congressional hearings. Chairman Kennedy, Ranking Republican Nancy Landon Kassebaum and the other senators were spellbound, as were the staff, the police and the spectators on both sides. You could hear a pin drop as Cheryl told her story.
It was an uncomplicated, direct, but nonetheless dramatic, report familiar to many gay Americans. After several years of exemplary service at Cracker Barrel, Cheryl was fired. No warning, no process, no severance. She was told to leave and her personnel file noted that "her lifestyle was inappropriate for a family restaurant. She is a lesbian." Cheryl began to cry as she tried to tell the panel what that meant to her and her long-time partner and to her teenage son. She told the Committee that she didn’t want government help or welfare, that she wanted to work, but she had no way to pay her mortgage. She broke down describing the pain that was inflicted on her son, the harassment to the point that she had to take him out of his high school. Then Cheryl just broke down, not simply choking up and tearful, Cheryl’s anguished sobs reverberated in the hearing room. Kennedy and Kassebaum were crying and Senator Kennedy called a recess so Cheryl could compose herself.
What I witnessed that day over 15 years ago was a powerful, accomplished, brilliant political leader, a man who had run for president of the United States and was the acknowledged leader of the left in the Senate for decades, brought to tears by a simple story of injustice. When the hearing resumed, Senator Kennedy spoke to Cheryl Summerville like a caring parent or uncle, thanking her for her courage and participation and assuring her that he would use his office and power to pass legislation to prevent the kind of employment discrimination she had experienced. It was a personal conversation held in public. It felt awkward to listen to this colloquy between Kennedy and Cheryl. I am utterly convinced Kennedy has remembered that testimony until he passed from us last night. Yes, Ted Kennedy fought for principles, but more importantly he fought for the people who paid the price when those principles are ignored. A few weeks later Kennedy lost his chairmanship when the GOP took control of the U.S. Senate.
It is exceedingly sad that the legislation on which the LGBT community has labored with Senator Kennedy for so long -- ENDA, Hate Crimes, ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and repealing DOMA -- have eluded us. Perhaps his passing will engage all of us at a higher level to finish the work he began.
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