Remarks by Bob Summersgill accepting Distinguished Service Award

GLAA 32nd Anniversary Reception
Radisson Barcelo Hotel
Tuesday, April 15, 2003

I am very pleased to receive this award, although GLAA presidents get one as soon as they step down, so it was fixed in my case, unlike the others this evening.

There was the question of whether a current officer should get an award, so I did the honorable thing and offered to resign as Treasurer. Unfortunately my resignation was not accepted.

We have been joking in GLAA that we have been annoying all the right people since 1971. This is not quite true. We eventually manage to annoy everyone and we generally start with each other.

Gene Kelly playing a character based on H.L. Mencken in Inherit the Wind said "It is the duty of newspapers to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

This goes for activists as well.

There is of course little thanks or reward for exposing incompetence, corruption and illegal activity by government officials before the targets have fallen to popular distain. I was critical of former Fire Chief Few at his confirmation hearing for his apparent lack of experience and interest in working with a diverse staff and city population. Naturally, I was accused of being too negative of this stellar new mayoral appointment. After a couple of years of disastrous mistakes, he had to resign in disgrace. Obviously, timing is everything. The new chief is in the process of reversing those mistakes.

Clearly, I am way too early on my criticism of the financial irregularities at the HIV/AIDS Administration. My testimony on their lack of transparency, honesty and accountability was harshly attacked as a "pack of lies." I believe that we were just early in criticizing HAA and now the avalanche of audits and formal investigations has begun, we can finally expect a shake up.

I spent four years working to pass a significant piece of legislation and change public school policies to protect students from harassment. That legislation, the "Human Rights Amendment Act of 2002" is one of the most significant pieces of legislation that we have seen in many years. In addition to defining harassment as a form of illegal discrimination, it closes a host of loopholes that the Corporation Council has used -- usually unsuccessfully -- to undermine the Human Rights Act.

Thanks goes to the ACLU, especially Donn Cohen and Steve Block for drafting it, Carol Schwartz for introducing it and Jim Graham for shepparding it through the Council. Tommy Wells deserves credit for passing a supporting policy for the DC Public Schools. Anywhere else, this would be major news. However, because of just how well this legislation was handled by everyone involved, it failed to generate opposition, and therefore there was no news coverage. Nonetheless, it stands as a major step in protecting students from harassment.

Being President of GLAA means that I can take credit for the last 32 years of gay rights efforts in Washington, as if I had something to do with anything in the first 28 years. And this is a truly remarkable group. We were the first in the nation on many fronts. We were first to pass a comprehensive non-discrimination law. We repealed the DC sodomy law, not once, but twice. We passed a Hate Crimes Law, a domestic partnership law, conducted police trainings, got early funding for AIDS service groups, got protection from discrimination in the schools and on and on and on.

We have at least three things that have worked to our credit: First, Longevity. As the oldest continually active gay rights group in the country, we have had time to do more than anyone else. Craig Howell deserves the credit for keeping the continuity of the group for three decades.

Second, DC's unique constitutional status. Since DC is more than a city and less than a state, but with all of the governmental functions of each, GLAA has been uniquely placed to work on a wider range of issues than any other gay rights group in the country.

And third, the brilliant people that shape and guide our actions. From Frank Kameny who shaped and guided the entire gay rights movement to follow his vision, as well as the small core group which collectively represents hundreds of years of activism.

GLAA maintains a textbook "fear and loathing" relationship with public officials. The smart ones agree to do what we ask. The ones that fight us run into trouble. The public is often unaware of us because we don't offer direct services or mobilize the community to act. When people find a need for the laws and policies that we work on, it is often years or decades after we did our job and they are unaware of what has been done to help.

Now that I am not President, I plan to continue to work with GLAA to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Thank you again for this honor.