Date: Fri, 26 Aug 94 15:19:07 HST From: Congressman Norman Minetta played a key role in persuading the National Convention of the Japanese American Citizens League to support their National Board in endorsing same sex marriage. Here is the text of the speech which won many votes to the side of legal recognition of same sex marriages. Tom Ramsey Secretary Hawaii Equal Rights Marriage Project ramsey@math.hawaii.edu CONGRESSMAN NORM MINETTA'S SPEECH TO THE JACL CONVENTION Salt Lake City, Utah Aug. 6, 1994 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It has been many years since I spoke on a resolution pending before a National Convention, but I am compelled to do so in this case. I believe it would be disastrous if this Convention were to repudiate the action of our National Board in this matter. There are those who have argued that gay rights issues are not Japanese American issues. I cannot think of any more dangerous precedent for this organi- zation to set than to take a position on an issue of principle based solely on how it directly affects Americans of Japanese ancestry. When we fought our decade-long battle for redress, we won. We could not have done so if we had stood alone in that fight. Where would we be today if the NAACP, or the National Council of La Raza, or [``or'' is underlined] the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force had taken the position that redress was a Japanese American issue---and had nothing to do with African Americans, Hispanic Americans, or gay and lesbian Americans? Those organizations, and their members, joined us because they understood and believed in our argument that a threat to the civil rights of one American is a threat to the civil rights of all Americans. They acted based on that principle and not on a narrow evaluation of how redress affected their own communities. We could not have won without their help. But for all the support we garnered outside the Congress, redress did not begin moving in [``in'' is underlined] the Congress until 1987. For years, the Administrative Law Subcommittee in the House of Representatives had been chaired by an enemy of redress. He held hearings, but stacked the witness list against us. And he made sure that the Civil Liberties Act died at the end of each Congress. Those roadblocks came tumbling down in 1987, when the leadership of that Subcommittee changed---and Congressman Barney Frank became its Chairman. I remember I mentioned to my staff that I should go and ask Barney if there was any way to get redress moving. I never had the chance to go to him. He came to me [``me'' is underlined] in the opening days of the 100th Congress. He told me that his top priority as Chair would be to make the promise of redress a reality--and by the end of the 100th Congress, redress was written into the laws of this country. A gay Congressman from Massachusetts, with only a tiny Asian Pacific American constituency, makes redress his top priority. Why? Because, he saw our civil rights as an issue of fundamental principle for this country. Our success came from the willingness of countless Americans of all backgrounds to take the same position. How can we as an organization turn around and say that civil rights of other Americans have nothing to do with us? I do not think we can. Our reputation as a national civil rights organization is based, more than anything else, on our dedication to principle and our resolve to stand by our decisions. Doing what is right is often controversial. Doing what is just is often unpopular. But if we are to remain a viable voice in the national civil rights movement, we cannot back away from our commitments simply because the issue is difficult. I urge the National Council to reject the resolution [over- turning the National Board's endorsement of same sex marriage].