With the battle over reproductive rights heating up this election season, Chicago is about to get a visit from one of the country's best-known pro-choice advocates.
Celebrity attorney Gloria Allred will speak at the Personal PAC Annual Awards Luncheon Oct. 30. Personal PAC is a political action committee that aims to elect pro-choice candidates.
In preparation for her visit, Windy City Times caught up with Allred to talk about the state of women's rights today, her decades of work on LGBT issues and what she believes is at stake in November's presidential election.
Windy City Times: At the start of your book, you talk about how you couldn't imagine you would be fighting the same battles for women's rights 30 years later because you thought more progress would have been made.
Gloria Allred: Now, make that 36 years later.
WCT: Ha, yes. Where do you think we are on women's rights now and have we really made progress?
Gloria Allred: Well, I guess a conservative would say, 'Look how far we've come.' And as a progressive, I say, 'Look how far we have to go.' My standard is when we enjoy equal rights under the law and are our rights being enforced under the law? And the answer is, 'no.' We don't enjoy equal rights under the law.
It took us 72 years to win the right to vote from 1848 to 1920, the addition of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And now, we are far in excess of 72 years in working to win the right to enjoy the protection of the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution.
There are constant attacks on reproductive rights, which is going to be the focus of my speech on October 30th in Chicago. And of course, we have so much at stake in this election. People say, 'What's at stake?' Everything's at stake. But on the reproductive rights issues particularly, the next president of the United States is likely to be able to appoint two potentially at least vacancies on the United States Supreme Court because of the age of certain justices.
WCT: There has been a strong resurgence of anti-choice activists in the last few years. Why do you think we're revisiting this issue right now?
Gloria Allred: It's because the other side was not satisfied with the Roe v. Wade decision, and they are continually battling to undercut it, to undermine it, to eliminate it. As long as they are fighting this battle and are actually being successful in many ways in many states in that battle, we have to continue to protect our rights and to protect the women who depend on those of us who know how to protect rights. That's why we have to organize politically, fight the battle legally, in the court of public opinion and everywhere else.
WCT: You've also been very active on LGBT issues in addition to women's rights. Where do the two movements intersect for you?
Gloria Allred: Well, the answer is persons who are lesbians are women as well. Let that not be forgotten. So, some of them also want to become pregnant and give birth or they want to be able to be sure that they have their reproductive rights or they may need access to birth control to treat other medical conditions that they have. In addition, some of them may be raped and may need to choose have a safe and legal abortion. So, I think they need to have access to information about their bodies as well and to have right to choose what to do about their bodies because we all say that the most important turning point in a woman's life is if she becomes pregnant.
WCT: In your book, you talk a lot about how you became connected to women's issues and race issues. Did you have an experience that mobilized you towards working on LGBT issues?
Gloria Allred: What did? That's a good question. I went in the practice of law in the '70s. Not long thereafter, I met somehow a man named Morris Kight who was, and is very well known in Southern California. He's passed away now, but he was one of the founders of the big… gay and lesbian pride parade here in Los Angeles and behind very early efforts and continued for his entire life to advocate for gay and lesbian rights and transgender and bisexual and so forth.
Anyway, he invited me to his home, which was in Hollywood. It was a small group there. I remember this was in the 70s. He said to me, "Gloria, you need to do some of these cases for us about discrimination." At that time, he said, "We don't have anybody to do these cases and we need to file lawsuits on these cases. We need you to do that."
And I thought about it, and I said, "well, I'd be open to at least considering what the problems are." Then, I don't know. I think people started contacting us.
WCT: I have to ask. What do you think of the whole Chick-fil-A controversy?
Gloria Allred: Ah, I really don't have any comment on that [laughs]. It's not my case so, I don't have any comment.
WCT: Going back to your own work on LGBT issues—
Gloria Allred: We were the first ones in California to announce that we would challenge the ban on same-gender marriage, marriage equality in California. Our clients Robin Taylor and Diane Olson were not permitted to marry. We did that on Valentine's Day one year… We have been very very successful with our gay and lesbian civil rights cases and second time, of course, Prop. 8 was upheld. Unfortunately the Supreme Court upheld Prop. 8 the second time, but we argued that at least that the marriages between the same-sex couples that had taken place between the time we had won the first time and the second time should be upheld even if Prop. 8 was upheld.
I also would have been very willing and happy to fight the case in Federal court. However, lawyers from important organizations in the lesbian and gay community asked myself and all other lawyers who were involved in the California cases not to file in Federal court because they were afraid of what the Supreme Court might do once it reaches the Supreme Court, if it does. So, we agreed not to, but I would have had it not been for that request.
WCT: As you know, we have now have lawsuits seeking marriage equality in Illinois, and I've heard some lament that these suits are circumventing the legislative process. How do you feel about that argument?
Gloria Allred:I believe in fighting for it in the legislature and fighting for it in the courts. If you're being denied rights, and fight for it everywhere that you can. This exclusion of a group who has been so persecuted in the past as gays and lesbians have been— first stigmatized, victimized by discriminatory laws and enforcement of those laws, denied their rights, treated as second-class citizens or worse, why should they have to choose only one form to fight for their rights which they should be entitled to? These are human rights.
WCT: Do you have any advice for the next generation of activists?
Gloria Allred: It would be the Mother Jones advice: "Don't agonize, organize."
See Allred at the Personal PAC luncheon Oct. 30, at the Hilton Chicago, 720 S. Michigan Ave. at 12 p.m. Ticket prices start at $150; call 312-422-0005 or visit www.PersonalPac.org .
