Speech By John Duran at Weho Protest Over PROP 8

John Duran, openly gay, HIV+ Latino former Mayor of West Hollwyood and Board President of Equality California gave the following powerful remarks last night from the stage about Proposition 8, LGBT civil rights and racism (as transcribed by lesbian reporter Karen Ocamb):

My voice has been horse almost gone but I had to get out of bed to be
here with all of you. I was so happy last night at the Music Box at
8:01 when California put Barack Obama over the line to be our next
President of the United States.

(Cheers.)

And I rejoiced watching (?) in Times Square in New York and Grant
Park, in Chicago at the Old Court House in Atlanta – all across this
country people cheering for Barack Obama as we did as a gay and
lesbian, bisexual and transgender community at the Music Box. We
shared that joy together.

And then, within 30 minutes, as the numbers started to come in – I
felt the joy being deflated by the fact that we were falling behind
on Proposition 8.

And then I was crushed when I heard that people of color were voting
against the GLBT community.

(Boos)

And I started to wonder to myself – how could this be? After all we
have struggled together as one coalition – in the Rainbow Coalition –
how could it be?

And then the stories started to come in from last night from my own
Latino culture on Santa Monica Boulevard – that there were Latino
males with Yes on 8 banners screaming “faggot” and “queer” at our
people along Santa Monica Boulevard.

(Boos)

As I heard the story of our black lesbian volunteer at a polling
place who was told by another black woman that “her kind” didn’t
deserve civil rights – how could that be?

(Boos)

My friends Alan and Jeff – who I married on Sunday – when they were
passing out No on 8 literature – had an old woman come up and spit
upon them. How could that be?

(Boos)

These were the stories I heard – so what it told me – and I get this
now – is that Yes on 8 – it was supported by black and white and
Latino and Asian and young and old people – that is true.

But the OTHER HALF of the vote was also black and white and Latino
and Asian and young and old.

(Cheers)

Never again. Never again will I assume that just because somebody is
of one race they are more likely to be supportive or opposed to me.
Or if somebody is of one religion – that he or she is more supportive
or opposed to me. Or of one political affiliation.

I need to start the same question with every person I meet,
regardless of those characteristics: Are you with the gay and lesbian
community or are you not?

(Cheers)

I completely get that the history of our country – and I completely
get the black community’s struggle against slavery and being denied
the right to vote and the lynching and the Jim Crows laws. And it
moves me with compassion when I hear those stories.

And I get the stories of Cesar Chavez and the farm Workers and the
xenophobia and what they had to fight for here in California. And it
moves me with compassion to hear about it.

And Asians being taken away to concentration camps during World War
Two. And Jews suffering in the Holocaust. I get all that.

But what about our chapter in the civil rights history? (Cheers)

(This is only partial because of the applause) If you want us to vote
for you or fight for you – then you must vote for us as well.

(Cheers)

But I am not here to compare our civil rights struggle to their civil
rights struggle. There’s no winner in the game for the bottom rung on
the ladder – we’ve all suffered. That is a no-win game.

I am here to say you must respect our same call for justice as we
respect your call for justice….
(cheers) because we too know brutality – the brutality on the
schoolyards when we were children and we know the brutality that AIDS
decimated our community over the last 25 years.

And we know the indecency now of not only being called threat to
children – as if we are a threat to our own children – but now to be
told indecently – we don’t have the right to marry the person we love.

That is not right in this America.

(Cheers)

So our stories are a call for justice – the same tonight. Remember
these dates: remember this night because this night is a new page in
the history our gay and lesbian community’s struggle. This week – we
will remember it from this time forward – just like October 11, 1987
when ACT UP was formed in Washington DC during the March on Washington.

And just like September 30, 1991 when we rushed into the streets when
Gov. Peter Wilson vetoed AB 101.

This night is our decade’s call to action…(much screaming and cheers)
– God Bless you all….

Wow. Channeling Harvey Milk. Remember the date: November5, 2008.