The following is the text of David Cruise's keynote address
at "Out and Equal in the '90s: the Third Annual Lesbian, Gay
& Bisexual Workplace Issues Conference, October 16, 1993, at
Stanford University.  David Cruise was appointed Director of
Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Department of Commerce
by President Clinton in June, 1993.

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This is a first for me: my first public appearance as an
identified gay man.  I "came out" six months ago -- during
the March on Washington.  After the march I joined friends
for a drink at the J.W. Marriott.  "Drinks" quickly turned
into a symposium on the civic responsibilities which are the
reciprocal of civil rights.  It was an enlightening afternoon
and I will forever be grateful to my companions: a young gay
man, a close friend from my home state of Rhode Island, a
retired professor, and a wise and compassionate counselor.
They talked about love and romance, about risks and dangers,
and they explained patiently that if I wanted to win equal
rights as an American citizen who is homosexual, I must be
prepared to accept the responsibilities; and the first of
these, they each insisted, is *telling*the*truth*.  If you're
not *out* you can't win!  It's kind of like Publishers
Clearing House -- you have to return that envelope!

I returned to Rhode Island and "came out" to my parents.  Two
weeks later my appointment as Director of Intergovernmental
Affairs in the Department of Commerce was formally announced
and I joined the ever-growing list of gays and lesbians in
President Clinton's administration.

My "coming out" experience is probably much like yours --
except perhaps that the news that I'm gay was revealed by my
hometown paper before I'd had a chance to tell many of my
friends.  Nevertheless, most of them greeted the *revelation*
with yawns.  Friend after friend assured me that being gay is
"no big deal."

But they are wrong.  Being gay or lesbian in America today
*is* a big deal -- as Zoe Dunning, Joe Zuniga, Margarethe
Cammermeyer, Joe Steffan, and thousands of other military men
and women know all too well.  And being homosexual is a *very*
big deal to Jesse Helms, Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan and Pat
Robertson.  And being homosexual is a *tragically* big deal
to the women and men who have been attacked -- and killed --
by the brutal cowards who prey on us.

My friend the professor insists we've come a long way since
the days when he was fired from his post as press secretary
to the Governor of California because of "rumors" he was gay.
But what does he know?  He lives in San Francisco!  If he
lived in Cumberland, Rhode Island, or Cobb County, Georgia,
the 1990s would seem very much like the 1960s... or the 1930s.

That's what I'd like to talk about now: about the intolerable
disparity in civil rights in our country -- and about an idea
which may move us toward the elimination of those disparities.

I attended the recent convention of the National Lesbian and
Gay Journalists' Association in New York.  As those of you
who were there know, it was quite a meeting!  New York Times
publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., hosted the impressive
opening reception, and New York mayor David Dinkins welcomed
the journalists warmly.  Tom Brokaw, Robert MacNeil, Dan
Rather and Judy Woodruff appeared together.  Twenty of the
country's pre-eminent new organizations participated in a job
fair where they actively recruited new employees from the
ranks of the 800 lesbian and gay newspeople there.  A panel
of editors and broadcast news executives pledged to open their
newsrooms to lesbian and gay reporters in order to assure
that the news they print and broadcast will accurately reflect
the wonderful diversity of our country.  That's quite a change
from the days -- just a few years ago -- then The Times wouldn't
use the word "gay" and never reported favorably -- or even
accurately -- on anything we did or said.  We have begun to
witness the results of this change.  By any standard the
coverage of the 1993 March on Washington was a far cry from the
silence -- or the sneering -- that greeted the 1989 March, and
hardly a week goes by that some story about our struggle doesn't
appear on the front page.  This conference is further evidence
of just how far we have come.  There is so much corporate power
in this room you'd think it was a meeting of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce!  We have come a long way.

Today a reporter at the [San Francisco] Chronicle, the Los
Angeles Times, Newsweek or ABC can put a photo of her or his
lover on the desk without fear of being fired for it.  And
employees of most major U.S. companies can invite their lovers
to the company picnic fearlessly.  But as you know better than
anyone the vast majority of company health plans won't cover
that lover if she or he is ill, and most firms don't even
sanction bereavement leave when a lover dies.  And, of course,
for employees of Cracker Barrel...  Well, you *aren't* an
employee of Cracker Barrel!

May I digress for a moment?  I've spent my entire working life
in government.  First as a local elected official, then as a
state senator in Rhode Island, then as chief of staff to my
state's governor, and now as an executive in the Department of
Commerce.  Needless to say, these experiences lead me to think
first of government as the place to turn to  to redress social
wrongs.  But in my new job I have begun to recognize that
government is one of three "partners" that jointly hold power
in America.  The state, the church, and the private sector each
exercises power, each controls our lives, each dictates what
we can -- and cannot -- do in our public and in our private
lives.  The state, for example, legalizes marriage; the church
sanctifies marriage; and employers grant benefits to "legal"
spouses.  The state determines how men and women may -- and
may not -- have sex, citing religious doctrine as justification,
and in those states where our actions violate the law, employers
can fire workers convicted of violating those laws.  Employers
are encouraged to grant priority to veterans, but the state
denies us the right to *be* veterans -- based on prejudice
promoted by many of our churches.

I'm not suggesting here that we challenge the churches; and as
a politician I'm going to encourage you to continue to seek
government action at every level and at every opportunity.  But
as a recently enlightened spectator of the American power game
I want to recommend that we focus our demands for change, our
crusade for understanding, our petitions for redress, on American
business.

Of course this Third Annual Conference on workplace issues is
evidence that you came to this same conclusion while I was
still arranging the clothes in my closet!  But I want to challenge
you -- and myself -- to take a broader view of the task and of
the opportunities.  It seems to me that there are three legs of
the "milk stool" of American business, and that its power derives
from first, the skill of management to raise capital and run the
business; next, the approval of regulators who enforce the rules;
and, finally, the productivity of employees.  Decisions in
corporate board rooms, rulings by federal, state, and even
local agencies, and collective action by employees constitute the
vectors which move capitalism.

Let me take the last of these first.  It seems to me that there
is a need for a national coalition of lesbian and gay employee
groups to extend the outstanding work of this conference
nationwide and year-round.  The work that [LGBWIC conference
chair] George Kronenberger and the rest of you have done with
such distinction is clearly the foundation.  Now it seems to me
it is time to extend your work beyond larger companies to
smaller firms operating in places where the climate may not be
as benign as it is here in Silicon Valley.  I hope that as your
association with [the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force] matures,
you will have the resources to train organizers, provide
materials, and tailor strategies to companies all across the
country.  Such a national organization might also be able to
exert influence on colleges and universities to limit campus
recruiting to companies that respect all Americans; could provide
a job referral service; and even offer job interview advice to
prospective employees.  I look forward to the day when the
association of gay and lesbian employee groups takes its place
as a major player in labor-management relations.

Second, it's crucial that a coordinated, strategically
sophisticated effort be launched to educate regulatory agencies,
from the Securities and Exchange Commission to local Business
Development Districts.  They *need* educating!  As you may
recall, the S.E.C. recently ruled that the New York City
Employees' Reitrement Fund had no right to place a shareholder
resolution demanding equal treatment of lesbians and gays on
the proxy ballot of Cracker Barrel.  That appears to run counter
to Judge Kimba Wood's ruling in the WalMart case that "equal
employment" issues constituted "significant policy" rather than
"ordinary business," and were, therefore, legitimate concerns
of stockholders.  It seems strange that the S.E.C. thinks racial
equity is "significant policy" while discrimination against
lesbians and gays is just "ordinary business."  On second
thought, that doesn't surprise me at all!

On the positive side of the ledger, we can take heart from the
work Californian Olena Berg is doing as Assistant Secretary of
Labor for Pension and Welfare Benefits.  Ms. Berg -- who used
to be [California State Treasurer] Kathleen Brown's chief
deputy -- is a champion of the shareholder rights movement.
She told The New York Times that she intends to operate a
clearing-house to provide information about "targeted
investments."  Someone needs to talk to her about targeting
investments to companies that respect the rights of lesbians
and gays!  And what we have to be able to demonstrate is that
respect for human rights is good for business -- that firms
that unleash the full potential of all their employees profit
from increased productivity.

And that leads to the third leg of the "stool" that supports
corporate America: money and management.  Watching the news
the other evening I rejoiced to see Nelson Mandela at the United
Nations.  Talk about change!  He appealed for an end to sanctions
and called for renewed investment in the new South Africa -- a
nation wrenched from Apartheid in no small part because of the
actions of socially-responsible American investors.  It is now
time for American investors to show the same leadership on our
issues.  It is time to invent Lavender Capitalism.  It is time
for us -- and all Americans who respect us -- to put our money to
work for our liberation.  Our investment strategy should both
reward the firms that respect us and penalize those who don't.
If we had an organization that could speak for lesbian and gay
investors -- and vote our proxies -- I'm confident we could get
the attention of American business.  One way we might do that
is by convincing giant investors like the California Public
Employees' Retirement System to allocate 1% of their investments
to firms that do not discriminate in hiring or benefits.  If
that were to happen I'm sure that business after business would
change their policies in order to qualify as an investment.

Of course I'm aware of the leadership NGLTF has already
demonstrated in these areas.  The work Howard Tharsing, of
Progressive Asset Management, has done to develop the "lavender
screen" for investors, the Task Force's development of the roster
of companies which respect our rights, and the efforts of the
leaders of this conference to increase the number of such firms
are vital first steps.  But I suggest it's now time to move
further.  I'd like to be able to invest in a mutual fund like
the newly-created Women's Equity Mutual Fund, a fund that
includes companies like those honored in your program (too bad
Levi-Strauss isn't publicly traded!).  I suppose someone is
already working on creating such a fund, but if they aren't,
they should be!

There is, incidentally, another benefit which may be forthcoming.
If the combined force of Lavender Capitalism can be brought to
bear on businesses we can expect that some corporate support for
anti-gay politicians will dry up.  As a politician who used to
raise campaign funds, I can assure you that that little change
will get the attention of *everybody* on Capitol Hill -- and in
fifty state capitols!

Finally, I know I'm being presumptuous.  For a man who's been
out of the closet half a year to be telling you how to run our
crusade is little short of ridiculous.  But I have an excuse.
I am like the religious convert, the newly-enlightened true
believer, or the sophomore in his first philosophy class.  I
am too excited to be cool, too hopeful to be cautious, and too
thrilled by my new freedom to be modest.  But I want to promise
you -- it's not all talk!  If any of what I have suggested requires
that I invest my time in actually doing something, I pledge to
work -- *with* you -- to translate this rhetoric into action.

Thank you for your patient indulgence and gracious attention.

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rod williams -=- pacific bell -=- san ramon, ca -=- rjwill6@pacbell.com
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