From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: Arrest of Candidate Larry Agran -- Speech to HRCF Forum
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 06:59:25 GMT


    "Larry Agran is on the ballot in 40 states and territories.  So are
    Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown.  But the voters are not allowed to
    hear Larry Agran..."

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Date: 05 Apr 92 18:51:21 EDT 
From: Agran for President <75300.3112@CompuServe.COM> 
Subject: Speech Yesterday 
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                    REMARKS OF AGRAN '92 ISSUES DIRECTOR 
                               STEPHEN SMITH 
                  TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN FUND FORUM 
                               APRIL 4, 1992 

        When one of us is asked to address an audience on behalf of 
Larry Agran, we almost always have to begin by answering the question, 
"Larry Who?"  Obviously, it's hard to argue in favor of a candidate 
who is rarely mentioned in the news and is almost never included in 
nationally televised debates. 

        My first thought was to tell you about how Larry Agran had 
been one of America's most progressive municipal leaders of the 1980s, 
serving as the Mayor of Irvine -- yes, a liberal Democrat elected time 
and again in conservative Orange County.  I thought about telling you 
how he entered Presidential politics last year when George McGovern 
asked Larry to be his 1992 campaign manager, and how Larry decided to 
run himself when Senator McGovern chose not to.  I thought about 
telling you how he personally wrote a human rights ordinance in 1989 
which, among other things, banned discrimination on the basis of 
sexual orientation, and how that act cost him re-election.  And I 
thought about telling you that, of the three candidates represented 
here today, only Larry Agran received a perfect score from the Human 
Rights Campaign Fund. 

	[The HRCF nevertheless did not endorse Agran. Similarly,
	the Village Voice, who noted that "On every issue, Agran is
	more specific, more consistent, and more progressive than
	Jerry Brown..."  ended up endorsing Brown -- two more examples
	how how the current political system and political culture
	encourages anti-demoractic behavior in the large due to the
	way the system functions. --HB]


        But last Tuesday night, an event occurred in the Bronx, New
York, an event so horrendous in nature, an event so repugnant to our
fundamental principles of democracy, that I have chosen to speak about
that instead.  For when our democracy itself is threatened, no one --
gays or straights -- can be assured of fundamental human rights.

        On Tuesday night Larry Agran was arrested, roughed up by the 
NYPD and thrown in jail. 

        Why?  Because he stood up in the audience at an event billed 
by the local Democratic Party as "The Democratic Presidential 
Candidates' Debate on Urban America."  He addressed the moderator, 
said that he was one of the four active Democratic candidates on the 
New York primary ballot, and respectfully requested to join Bill 
Clinton and Jerry Brown on the dais.  Larry was dragged out of his 
seat by the police, gang-tackled, thrown head- first down a flight of 
stairs, handcuffed, and left in a police van for two hours.  He was 
then booked and charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and 
trespassing -- even though he was a Democratic candidate, on the 
ballot, attending a forum billed as being for "the Democratic 
candidates."  And he'd even bought a ticket to get in. 

        What did Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown do while all this was 
going on?  Nothing.  They sat there watching as a fellow Democratic 
candidate was being brutally silenced.  Make no mistake about the fact 
that both Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown know who Larry is -- Larry has 
appeared in several debates with them before, one as recently as two 
weeks ago in Buffalo. 

        I will grant you that Jerry Brown and Bill Clinton have said 
many positive things about protecting gay and lesbian rights.  But 
there's an adage among gays fighting to promote the cause of AIDS 
victims -- "Silence is complicity."  Jerry Brown's and Bill Clinton's 
silence tells me that their commitment to the fundamental human 
liberties guaranteed in the U.S.  Constitution is somewhat less than 
pure.  Anyone can wear a red ribbon on his suit.  But it takes a true 
commitment to human rights to risk arrest and brutality for a just 
cause. 

        What happened in the Bronx Tuesday night was the latest in a 
long series of incidents where the Democratic Party has tried to 
exclude Larry Agran from the electoral process. 

        Ever since he announced his candidacy for the Presidency last 
August, Larry Agran has been systematically excluded by the powerful 
insiders of the Democratic Party.  He has been denied the right to 
speak at events where Bill Clinton, Jerry Brown and other candidates 
could speak. 

	[Part of the history of how and why Agran lost favor with the
	Demo. party machine is revealed in excerpt from a letter Steve
	sent to me in January:]

    The very day that Agran announced for his candidacy, on August 22,
    I personally called the NH State Party to notify them of Agran's
    candidacy and his intention to participate in all Party-sponsored
    events.  When the Party scheduled its convention for November 2
    and stated its intention to use the convention as a candidates'
    forum, we were told that if Larry Agran wanted to address the
    convention he'd have to pay the party money.  Harkin's $50,000
    "donation" was cited as an example.  They wanted $2,000 for a
    block of 300 seats we wouldn't use; $800 to construct a booth we
    wouldn't use; and $10,000 for a voters' list that we could get far
    more cheaply from the NH secretary of state.  We were told that if
    we wouldn't pay the money, Larry Agran would be barred from
    speaking to the convention.
	   Larry Agran refused.  He believes in free speech, not fee
    speech. 
       After that, the state party repeatedly refused to return our
    phone calls.  When we DID get through, they made only vague
    promises that Agran would have some role in the convention.
    ---end excerpt---

        Did you know that the Democratic National Committee keeps a 
list of "approved" candidates?  It's true.  We know because in late 
November we were told by an inside source that Larry's name had been 
dropped from it.  Instantly, Larry was no longer invited to 
party-sponsored events.  Bill Clinton is.  Even the self-proclaimed 
"outsider," Jerry Brown, is.  But not Larry Agran. 

        Larry has been blacked out by the Democratic National 
Committee and the national media, although a few honest party leaders 
at the local level have seen to it that Larry is included in their 
events.  But those occasions have been all too rare, and neither Bill 
Clinton nor Jerry Brown have lifted a finger to protect the democratic 
process so that all candidates on the ballot can be heard. 

        Larry Agran is on the ballot in 40 states and territories.  So 
are Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown.  But the voters are not allowed to 
hear Larry Agran.  How can millions of Americans make an honest 
decision at the voting booth when they've been denied the opportunity 
to decide for themselves? 

        The point of having a primary process is so millions of 
registered Democrats and Republicans across the country can choose who 
they want as their nominee.  That nominee should be a candidate who is 
a true leader, one who will speak out against injustice, against 
violation of fundamental human rights, and who will risk not only his 
political career but his own personal safety to protect the rights of 
others. 

        You won't find that kind of leadership in Bill Clinton or 
Jerry Brown.  We saw that on Tuesday night.  Jerry Brown keeps talking 
about reform, but talk is cheap.  Tuesday night was Jerry Brown's 
opportunity to prove that his talk about reforming the system, about 
preserving our democracy, is sincere.  But Jerry Brown and Bill 
Clinton failed that test. 

        Larry Agran learned all about leadership in the 1960s, when he 
attended UC Berkeley and was a member of the Free Speech Movement.  He 
showed that leadership in 1989, when as Mayor of Irvine he wrote the 
city's Human Rights Ordinance.  That ordinance banned discrimination 
in housing, lodging or employment on the basis of race, gender, 
religion, marital status, or physical disability -- all the 
traditional categories of bias.  But Larry added one new category -- 
"sexual orientation." 

        As soon as the ordinance became law, the local zealots went 
nuts.  Fundamentalists began to pour thousands of dollars into Irvine 
from around the country, to get the words "sexual orientation" removed 
from the law.  Soon, leaflets started appearing on the doorsteps of 
every home in Irvine.  One claimed that under the Agran law, carloads 
of gay men could cruise the streets of Irvine kidnapping young boys 
off the streets to sodomize them -- and it would be legal.  Another 
claimed that gay men could expose themselves to little boys in public 
restrooms -- and it would be legal.  And another claimed that gay 
teachers would soon be teaching their so- called "immoral" lifestyle 
in public schools -- and it would be legal. 

        Larry Agran stood up against it all.  Unfortunately, the 
homophobes succeeded in getting an initiative passed to remove the 
words "sexual orientation" from the law.  Six months later, Larry lost 
re-election, by almost exactly the same narrow margin as the sexual 
orientation vote. 

        What happened to Larry Agran in the Bronx on Tuesday night 
could happen to any of us.  It might even happen to Bill Clinton or 
Jerry Brown some day, if they cross the wrong people.  Of these three 
candidates, only Larry Agran has shown the courage and the willingness 
to suffer to protect our rights. 

        In 1955, Rosa Parks ignited the modern civil rights movement 
when she was arrested for refusing to sit in the back of the bus. 
Last Tuesday, Larry Agran was arrested when he refused to sit in the 
back of the auditorium. 

        It's pretty obvious that with the system stacked against him, 
Larry Agran has no chance of defeating Bill Clinton or Jerry Brown in 
the California primary.  But that's not the point.  Unlike the other 
candidates who have dropped out, Larry Agran is in this race all the 
way.  Why?  Because his campaign isn't about personal career 
advancement.  It's about new national priorities, about representing 
an agenda that is all too often ignored in mainstream politics.  And 
after the 1992 race is over, he intends to continue that battle by 
building a nationwide coalition of progressive activists dedicated to 
bringing new priorities to the forefront of American politics. 

        Martin Luther King said that, "He who accepts evil without 
protesting against it is really cooperating with it."  He also said 
that, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."  And 
when he was thrown in a Birmingham, Alabama jail, King wrote, "I 
submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him 
is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to 
arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in 
reality expressing the very highest respect for law." 

        Rarely in a presidential campaign do we have the opportunity 
to truly test a candidate's mettle.  On Tuesday night, not only was 
Larry Agran tested, but so were Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown.  I'll 
leave it to you to judge their performance. 
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive