John Hilgeman 0:12 Good morning. This is John Hilgeman for Lambda Reports, a program by and for the lesbian and gay community in the St Louis area. Our guest today is Steve Endean, Director of the Field Division for the Human Rights Campaign fund. And Steve, it's good to have you with us this morning. Steve Endean 0:30 Thank you very much, John. I'm delighted to be able to be with you today. John Hilgeman 0:33 Can you tell us a little bit about what the Human Rights Campaign fund is? Steve Endean 0:36 Sure. The campaign fund was launched in 1980 as a political action committee to raise money for candidates that supported gay and lesbian rights and to defeat candidates who oppose this at the Congress. Over time, we've taken on the lobbying task as well. So the campaign fund is realistically perceived as both a national lobby and a political action committee. Most recently, we have undertaken the critical, the critical missing piece of generating constituent mail to Congress on on gay, lesbian and aids issues. So but our issue is our focus is national and on the Congress. John Hilgeman 1:24 Okay, what are some of the issues that the campaign fund is dealing with right now? Steve Endean 1:28 Well, a couple of the most hot button issues that are that we're dealing with are the Hate Crime Statistics Act and the Americans for disability Americans with Disabilities Act. Hate Crime Statistics Act is a bill to simply mandate the Department of Justice to collect statistics and data on violent crimes motivated by prejudice based on race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. As you may well know, I'm sure you do, violence against gays and lesbians is certainly on the rise, and has probably been more, has been exacerbated because of the AIDS crisis. The Hate Crime Statistics Act is a first step to beginning to combat that violence and provide some real teeth so that we can see to it that the violence is stopped and responded to it effectively. The House of Representatives passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act with gays and lesbians, sexual orientation included. There was a move in committee to delete sexual orientation, and it failed overwhelmingly. It now is going to be coming up to the Senate. In fact, it could be coming up any day. We thought for a while that would actually be voted on, you know, right this week. When that had, when the bill comes up, we anticipate that Senator Jesse Helms, the far right senator from North Carolina will move one of several amendments. One might be to simply delete sex orientation. Another might be to label gays and lesbians a threat to the American family, and in hope that his colleagues will be afraid to vote honestly and courageously and beat back his amendment. So that's one of the key issues that's coming up, and it will be coming up very soon in the Senate. The Americans with Disabilities Act has been introduced in both houses, and we expect action fairly soon. It would prohibit discrimination against the disabled and private employment, public accommodations, transportation, communications and state programs. And most that the angle, or the avenue, that we're most concerned about is making sure that the ADA is the bill is called, will make sure that persons with AIDS or HIV infection are perceived as disabled. For the purposes of this bill, it would, it would prohibit businesses from inquiring about HIV status or or excluding insurance, etc. So it's really quite important when the ADA bill comes up, and at this point it has strong, strong support in both houses. When that bill comes up, our sense is that there will most probably, probably be a move from the far right, an amendment to exclude coverage of HIV related conditions, and we obviously want to defeat that amendment, but that could be coming up again before the recess, which is in early August. One of the things you learned out here in Washington is that you never can predict the timing of Congress. So they always make into a wire, but we think it could well come up before, before the August recess. John Hilgeman 5:07 Okay. Now, one of the things that the campaign fund has been doing has been gathering a number of people who will be who have authorized mailgrams. Is that right? Steve Endean 5:18 Right? It sure is. The Speak Out program, as we call it, is a is a strategy to avoid having to go back to people each and every time something comes up. The way it works, as you know, is people sign up from anywhere from three on up, Western Union messages, one dayWestern Union messages. the messages cost just $2.95 each, which is a lot cheaper than they would be in any other system. And then when something comes up, we can activate a mailgram message for the individuals that are part of our system to their senator or representative and make sure their voice is heard in a timely fashion, even if it comes up at the last minute. For instance, on the Hate Crimes Bill that I just referred to, we've just activated mailgrams from somewhere between 10 and 12,000 people across the country who had who had joined the network, and we sent messages to their senators, urging them to not only support the Hate Crime Statistics Bill, but to oppose any Helms amendment, to modify it or impose his own hate amendment. It really gives us several things that I think that we've really been missing for a long time. So many things come up at Congress at the very last minute that there often isn't time for people around the country to even find out about them, let alone write their own letters. Most of us mean to write and don't get around to it, and even if we get around to writing, occasionally, there are so many issues coming up these days with the AIDS crisis, that we obviously don't have a chance to be heard as many times as we would like to be in the proxy mailgram system, those of us here at Congress can sort of do it for the rest of the people around the country and keep them informed as to how things are going. It's worked real well so far. John Hilgeman 7:19 Okay, how many people were recently signed up in the in the pride fest celebrations around the country, Steve Endean 7:28 We canvassed, and Canvas is just a fancy word for signing folks up, at between 30 and 40 pride days. And in that process, we signed up between 15 and 17,000 people for this system. The differential, because I just said 10 to 12,000 is that people, when they sign up, don't pay for their mailgrams. We send them a bill in the mail. We sent billings out the but we can't send mailgrams Until people have fulfilled on their billings. So we only have 10 to 12,000 that are actually available at this moment, but we overall have, John, of between 20 and 25,000 people now in the system. That's a long, long way from where we used to be. Let me give you an example. Three years ago, the most mail that had ever been generated to Congress on any day, or even an AIDS bill. Now this is known the general subject of AIDS, but in any specific aids bill, the most mail nationwide was 500 letters with 435 congressional districts. You can see that that is a very small amount of mail. Now, each time out of the shoot, we're able to generate 10, 15, and hopefully when, when everybody's paid their bills, over 20,000 pieces of mail. And it really makes a difference. Members of Congress, I think a lot of us have sort of gotten cynical. We don't think that members of Congress hear us, and they sometimes don't do what we want. That's true, but they really do pay attention to their mail. And my perception is, and I've been lobbying the gays, you know, for 19 years, is that, particularly since they have, since they've historically gotten so little mail from our side, the mail that they're going to get now, in the next year or two, as this system really gets going, is going to be have a great impact, and really quite people, quite startling to them. When I lobbied Capitol Hill for years up here, I kept hearing day in, day out, there aren't gays in my district. Oh, that's San Francisco or Greenwich Village, this isn't relevant to my district. Now they know that whether these everybody in the system is gay or not, and certainly they are not, that there are many people in their district and in their state that care about fairness for gays and lesbians, and they care about an effective government response to the AIDS crisis. Yes, so we're really excited. It's your biggest problem here, John is probably going to be getting me to shut up, because I'm, I'm finally, we're able to translate good intentions into concrete mail. And I'm very excited about it. John Hilgeman 10:15 Well, this is fantastic news. I know here's here locally, since we have a Bias Crimes Bill that was passed recently, in fact, it was passed, I guess in February. I think it was signed in February, there have been several people who have called the civil rights enforcement division in the city to report different things, and several reports had to do with sign for Pridefest that was defaced. And so people here in the city are aware of the fact that there are people who are concerned about this kind of discrimination too. And it's good to know that people in Congress are going to be getting the message from lots of people. Steve Endean 10:59 It really does make a difference, I'll tell you. And I'm, I'm, I'm so excited about what's been going on now, I hope that a year or two from now, that we can look back and laugh at 25,000 and say, Gee, that was a good beginning, but it sure is a long way from where we are now, just like with today, we can look back from a year or two ago and see, you know, when we were at 2 or 3000. The only the thing, I guess it's one of the things that's most important. Sometimes, when I talk about 25,000, people sort of think, well, in the context of 25,000, my single one doesn't make any difference, and that just really is not true. You know, every single person can make an enormous difference, and if they participate and sign up for mail and have their voice heard again and again, it really counts. At the same time when they decide not to sign up, or decide to let it go and just think about it, they are actually making a decision to not be heard for a certain period of time, and maybe for a long time. And you know, it's that message that we have to get to people. I think it's a, it's it's a, it's maybe a little hard edged, and people may not always like to hear it, but we all make a decision to either make a difference or to not make a difference. In that context, I want to, I do want to mention one of the groups nationally and around the country that we've worked most closely with, and that is the NAMES project. Of course, the NAMES project is not a political group and and doesn't officially take this on, but as we've been canvassing or signing people up, one of the very best opportunities to meet with people, as it then has been when the Quilt has been touring the country, and the NAMES project response, both from the national organization and from the local committees has been tremendous and very exciting. And I think that we would have far less, far smaller number of people signed up and far less support for this system, were it not for the names project. So I sort of want to there are a number of others. The MCC is in the in the Dignity, the gay Catholic group that have been particularly notable, but but the NAMES project has really been tremendous. John Hilgeman 13:27 Well, that's good to hear, especially since I'm connected with the names project here in St Louis. Sure. Also I wanted to ask you, how can people join the Speak Out campaign? Steve Endean 13:39 They can join a couple of different ways. We are getting out into the bars what we call these "take one holders" that will sit on top of cigarette machines and that the holders will contain our brochures, which are usually fairly bright brochures that explains the Speak Out program people can sign up right there, drop it back, refold it, drop it back in the mail without putting any postage on it. That it's, you know, at our at our expense, either in closing their check then, or having us bill them. So we'll be getting those out in in in the next couple three weeks, and I hope to get them out to St Louis. They could call us here in Washington at 202-628-4161. Or they could write to us at Post Office Box, 1723, Washington, DC, 20013, again, the mailgrams, or the messages are only $2.95. I think relatively few of us have sent sent mailgrams recently, but I was in talking with the folks from Western Union, they pointed out to me that if an individual called separate from this program and just picked up the phone and called Western Union wanted to send a 50 word message to his or her legislator, it'd be about $14 so this 2.95 price is is a very good deal. And also, I'm not sure that you can easily quantify the amount of money that the amount of value that's gotten out of putting all the pressure on Congress. John Hilgeman 15:31 Okay, we're running out of time right now, and that number, again, is 202-628-4161, Steve Endean 15:39 Right. John Hilgeman 15:40 And Steve Endean 15:41 they can just ask for the field division. John Hilgeman 15:43 Okay, Steve Endean 15:44 Any of us in the field division can assist them in signing up right then and there on the phone. They don't even have to have the materials. They can sign up and we can send them a billing reminder and all the materials. But as I said, we will shortly have materials out in the bars and another community gathering places there in St Louis and elsewhere in the Midwest. John Hilgeman 16:07 Okay. Well, thank you so much, Steve Endean from the Human Rights Campaign fund. Steve Endean 16:12 Thank you, John. John Hilgeman 16:14 We're glad to have you on this morning, and hope we can have you on again. Steve Endean 16:18 Thanks very much for having me. John Hilgeman 16:20 This is John hilgeman for Lambda Reports, a program by and for the lesbian and gay community in the St Louis area. You. Transcribed by https://otter.ai