Excerpts from President Clinton's speech yesterday in Boston... THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release April 25, 1993 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE 1993 ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA Grand Ballroom Marriott Copley Place Hotel Boston, Massachusetts ********************************************************** And finally let me say -- I think it's important to talk about today -- I'm doing my best to restore a sense of real community in this country. As I said right when I came to you last year, we'd just seen Los Angeles racked by riots and we were all talking about how we had to learn to live together without regard to race or income or region. I want to reiterate what I said to you a year ago: We don't have a person to waste in this country, and we're wasting them by the bucketful. We're letting people go -- this way, that way, and the other way. And that's one of the reasons that I have said that we have to fight for a society that is not at all permissive, but that is tolerant. Today in Washington, many Americans came to demonstrate against discrimination based on their sexual orientation. A lot of people think that I did a terrible political thing -- and I know I paid a terrible political price -- for saying that I thought the time had come to end the categorical ban on gays and lesbians serving in our military service and that they should not be subject to other discrimination in governmental employment. Let me tell you what I think. This is not about embracing anybody's lifestyle. This is a question of whether if somebody is willing to live by the strict code of military conduct, if somebody is willing to die for their country, should they have the right to do it? I think the answer is yes. (Applause.) If somebody is willing -- (applause). But in a larger sense, I want to say to you that I think the only way our country can make it is if we can find somehow strength out of our diversity, even with people with whom we profoundly disagree, as long as we can agree on how we're going to treat each other and how we're going to conduct ourselves in public forums. That is the real issue. It's very ironic to me to see that the traditional attacks on the position I've taken on this issue have come from conservatives saying that I am a dangerous liberal. I took on two issues like this as Governor of Arkansas, and I was attacked by liberals for what I did, and I want to tell you what they were. One was the leadership role I took in crafting a bill that permitted people to educate their children at home, consistent with their religious beliefs and their educational convictions, as long as the kids could take and pass a test every year. And people say, oh, that's a terrible thing. All those kids should be required to be in a school. How can you do that? And I said, because at least these people have coherent families and that's still the most important unit of our society, and people ought to have a chance to try other things. And it wouldn't do the schools any harm to have a little competition -- unsubsidized by the taxpayers, just letting people do it. Two, when the fundamentalist religious groups in my state were confronting a legal issue that swept the country in the mid-'80s, a bunch of them came to me and said, we do not mind having our child care centers subject to the same standards that everybody else is subject to. But it is a violation of our belief to have to get a state certificate to operate what we think is a ministry of our church. Don't make us do that. I don't know if you remember this, but in one or two states there were preachers that actually wound up going to jail over this issue -- the certification of child care centers. We sat down and worked out a law that permitted those churches to operate their child care centers without a certificate from the state as long as they were willing to be subject to investigation for health and fire safety, and as long as they agreed to be in substantial compliance with the rules and regulations that those who were certified observed. And people said, how can you do that? You know how many complaints we've had coming out of that, to the best of my knowledge? Zero. Not a one. Why? Because they were good people; and they were willing to play by the rules; and they wanted to have their religious convictions; and they wanted to stick up for their minister; and they desperately love the children that were in their charge. And we protected the public interest. But all the criticism I got was from the left, not the right. This doesn't have anything to do with left or right, this is about whether we are going to live in a country free of unnecessary discrimination. You are free to discriminate in your judgments about any of us -- how we look, how we behave, what we are. Make your judgments. But if we are willing to live together according to certain rules of conduct, we should be able to do so. That is the issue for America. And it has ever been unpopular at certain critical junctures. But just remember this: A whole lot of people came to this country because they wanted a good letting alone. (Applause.) And that's what we ought to be able to do today. (Applause.) ************************************************************* END4:55 P.M. EDT