I convened the first-ever national training conference for prosecutors on how to promote and deal with hate crime issues in terms of prosecutions and also protocol for defeating the gay panic defense.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'd like to continue being involved with issues that animated my time as attorney general - criminal-justice reform and civil rights especially. I don't just want to give speeches; I'd like to involve myself in this work in a systematic way.
Finally, fighting for gay rights, speaking out in various places and making friends, men and women, was great.
As my audience grew more diverse, I started interjecting social justice advocacy and commentaries about LGBT equality, and it just kept growing more.
Thirty years ago, in 1976, the notion of organized activity to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity was an extremely controversial one.
While the meeting I participated in turned out to be a ruse, I made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR's values and also not reflective of my own beliefs. I offer my sincere apology to those I offended.
I studied the philosophy and the discipline of non-violence in Nashville as a student. And I staged a sitting-in in the fall of 1959 and got arrested the first time in February 1960.
We all must make hatemongers unwelcome in our towns and communities. And we must stand by the heroes in this struggle, the police and county prosecutors who stand up to the extremists.
I represented many of these kids as they become young adults in the criminal justice system when I was a public defender. One way of reaching out is by the mind of experimentation.
Psephology isn't a hate crime.
I have never been on the receiving end of a hate crime, or even a disparaging remark to my face.