Subject: Clinton on ENDA, Hate Crimes to AFSCME
From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 09:23:37 -0500

THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                           March 23, 1999

                      REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                    TO AFSCME BIENNIAL CONVENTION

                         Omni Shoreham Hotel
                         Washington. D.C.

12:10 P.M. EST

             THE PRESIDENT:

****
             I ran for President in 1991 and 1992 because I believed
our country lacked a unifying vision and strategy for 21st century
America.  And I knew what I wanted America to look like and to be
like.  I wanted an America where the American Dream was alive and
well for every citizen responsible enough to work for it.
(Applause.)

             With all of our increasing diversity in America, I
wanted an America that really reaffirmed the idea of community, of
belonging; the idea that none of us can pursue our individual
destinies as fully on our own as we can when we want our neighbors to
do well, too; and that there is some concrete benefit to the idea of
community that goes beyond just feeling good about living in a
country where you're not discriminated against because of some
predisposition or anything else that has nothing to do with the law,
and nothing to do with how your neighbors live their lives; and that
what we have in common is more important than what divides us.

        I still believe that's going to be one of the major
questions facing this country in the 21st century, which is why I
devoted so much time to that initiative on race, and why I keep
fighting for passage of the hate crimes legislation, the employment
non-discrimination legislation -- all these things.  Because I am
telling you, you look all over the world -- that's what Kosovo's
about -- look all over the world.  People are still killing each
other out of primitive urges because they think what is different
about them is more important than what they have in common.
(Applause.)

****

             Thank you, and God bless you.  (Applause.)

               END                      1:03 P.M. EST