Jun 20, 2003  |  By: JOE CREA  | COMMENTS     

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who strongly criticized Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Department of Justice’s initial decision not to allow its employees to celebrate Gay Pride month, has scheduled a celebration for Department of Justice Pride members and other gay and lesbian federal employees at the Capitol for Friday, June 20.

“No member of the Bush administration can stop this event from happening. They don’t control the United States Senate,” Lautenberg said in a press release. “Justice at the Department of Justice isn’t blind when it comes to the rights of its own gay and lesbian employees. Ashcroft’s targeting of DOJ gay and lesbian employees with a ‘pay for your pride’ offer is insulting and shows just how little these individual’s contributions are valued.”

Officials at DOJ did not return a call seeking comment.

In what gay employees called a continued deviation from standard policy, the DOJ announced last week that it would not officially sponsor the Pride gathering. The decision meant that employees associated with DOJ Pride, a group of gay and gay-supportive Justice employees, would have to pay for the event expenses themselves. Ashcroft initially refused the group’s request to hold the program at all.

In previous years, including last year, the department paid for overhead expenses, including use of the Great Hall, set-up and breakdown of microphones and added security costs as the event is held after hours.

D.W. “Dondi” Tunnage, a trial attorney at the Justice Department and board member of DOJ Pride, said that the cost estimates, supplied by the department, were twice the size of the group’s annual budget.

It would have been more than $1,000,” Tunnage said, “well beyond our annual budget.”

Tunnage said DOJ Pride members pay annual fees suggested between $15-20. He said that the department’s offer to host, but not fund, the event amounted to “second class citizenship” and was the main impetus for DOJ Pride to accept Sen. Lautenberg’s invitation to hold the event in the Capitol.

“We cannot and will not be complicit in the message that our membership and the GLBT community must pay a toll to access the Great Hall of Justice,” wrote Tunnage on behalf of DOJ Pride. “Not in our Justice Department. Not in our country. Not now. Not ever.”

trong>Conflicting DOJ messages
A Justice Department spokesman told the Associated Press last week that it was not the department’s intention to block the event, but only to make it clear that they would not financially support the gathering.

Allison Nichol, vice president of Department of Justice Pride, said a department spokesperson had hinted that budgetary concerns were behind the decision not to allow the department to finance the celebration. But Nichol questioned how her group would be able to cover event expenses without help from the department.

Sen. Lautenberg had sent a strongly worded letter to Ashcroft urging him to reconsider his decision and threatened to take legislative action if the matter was not resolved.

The DOJ and Ashcroft have faced mounting criticism for the past week over the initial decision to refuse permission to the gay employee group. Some senators and American Civil Liberties Union officials said Ashcroft violated a promise he made during his confirmation hearings that he would not discriminate against the department’s gay employee organization.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) said in a statement that he specifically asked Ashcroft during his Senate confirmation about DOJ Pride’s use of government facilities. Ashcroft said he had “no intent to treat this group differently than any other.”

The Justice Department dismissed the accusation earlier last week saying that they did not violate their policy, but noted that an employee association cannot have an event without a presidential proclamation, the ACLU said.

But Marina Colby, a department policy analyst and president of DOJ Pride, said her group is the only employee association in the department that is affected negatively by the policy.

She said President Bush has issued a series of proclamations during his tenure honoring, for example, National African American History Month, Save Your Vision Week and Leif Erikson Day. He has yet to issue a proclamation declaring June Gay Pride Month, breaking a precedent set by President Bill Clinton.

The event, which will honor Joseph Clark of the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office and Susan Sommer from Lambda Legal Defense Fund, is scheduled to take place at 12:30 p.m. Friday, June 20, in the Russell Caucus Room (3rd floor of the Russell Senate Office Building) at First and C Streets, Northeast. All are welcome to attend.

trong>MORE INFO
Department of Justice Pride
www.dojpride.org