Clinton Addresses Gay-Rights Group but Ducks ‘Ellen’

In a nod to the budding political clout of the gay-rights movement, President Clinton addressed a fund-raiser for the nation’s largest gay and lesbian group Saturday. “We have to broaden the imagination of America,” he said.

Clinton’s sold-out dinner speech to the Human Rights Campaign, which was greeted by a sustained standing ovation inside and pickets outside, made him the first sitting president to publicly address a gay and lesbian civil rights organization.

Keeping to relatively noncontroversial territory, he steered clear of commenting on TV’s “Ellen,” whose star was being honored by the group. Instead, he urged Congress to pass legislation protecting homosexuals from job discrimination and to confirm nominee Bill Lann Lee as assistant attorney general for civil rights.

“What counts is energy and honesty and talent. No arbitrary distinction should bar the way,” Clinton said.

“When we deny opportunity because of ancestry or religion, race or gender, disability or sexual orientation, we break the compact. It is wrong, and it should be illegal.”

He told the audience of about 1,500 that people who “aren’t comfortable yet with you” need to learn to see lesbians and gays as fellow Americans committed to freedom and equality.

“Should we change the law? You bet. Should we keep fighting discrimination? Absolutely,” Clinton said. “But we have to broaden the imagination of America. We are redefining in practical terms the immutable ideals that have guided us from the beginning.”

White House officials billed the event as a “community outreach” gesture not unlike his recent participation in the National Italian American Foundation dinner.

“I would just want to put this in the context of all the work the president has done this year to reach out to a variety of communities and bring people together so they can think about what they share in common, as one America,” said White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry.

Elizabeth Birch, executive director of Human Rights Campaign, called Clinton’s record “completely in sync” with her group’s nondiscrimination agenda. “His presence is a powerful affirmation of the shared dream of equality for every American,” she said.

Thanking him for the first-ever White House conference on hate crimes to be held Monday, Birch added, “You can be absolutely sure, Mr. President, we will ask you to do more.”

Christian conservatives voiced disgust at what Andrea Sheldon, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, called “an American president kissing up to the wealthiest extremists of the amoral left.”

The other featured guest at the black-tie dinner, expected to raise $300,000 for the campaign’s political activities, was TV actress Ellen DeGeneres, who was accompanied by her partner, Anne Heche. With great fanfare, DeGeneres revealed last spring that both she and her title character on the ABC sitcom “Ellen” are gay.

While anti-gay demonstrators and AIDS protesters unhappy with Clinton’s record picketed the dinner at a downtown Washington hotel, White House officials played down any controversy.

McCurry preemptively quashed speculation that Clinton would follow Vice President Al Gore’s lead and embrace TV’s “Ellen” for its bold plot line. “That’s not an area that he wants to particularly highlight,” McCurry said Friday.

Clinton left the dinner before its program turned to DeGeneres, who, along with her mother and Heche, met the president backstage and out of view. News photographers were advised in advance that there would be no opportunity to snap Clinton and DeGeneres together.

Gore rankled conservatives--and surprised even some Democrats--when in a Hollywood speech last month he praised “Ellen” for prompting Americans to “look at sexual orientation in a more open light.”

Both Gore’s remarks and the mere fact of Clinton’s address underscored the increased visibility and weight of gay-rights issues within the Democratic Party.

Birch claimed an independent exit poll showed that votes from self-identified homosexual voters amounted to 7% of Clinton’s total support in 1996. “That’s the same as the Hispanic vote, and no one would ever fail to make a calculation about the importance of the Hispanic vote,” Birch said.

She estimates that gay donors gave $3.2 million to Democrats last year. The campaign itself wields the power of one of the larger political action committees, which spread $1.1 million among almost 200 candidates.