Moments before the first lady could address a Los Angeles crowd, her speech was disrupted by protestors calling for a ceasefire of the Israel-Hamas war. But, the audience gathered for the Human Rights Campaign dinner responded by simultaneously chanting “four more years.”
As part of the effort to raise campaign funds for President Joe Biden’s reelection bid, Jill Biden delivered a keynote speech at a dinner hosted by the civil rights organization in Century City on March 23.
The Human Rights Campaign is the largest civil rights organization that champions equality for the LGBTQ community in the nation. It also has a strong and consistent track record in supporting Joe Biden and the Biden-Harris administration. Last October, the Human Rights Campaign PAC announced that it is endorsing Biden’s reelection campaign. The organization also endorsed Biden while he was running for his first term in 2020.
The Biden’s made significant appearances at the HRC’s events during previous campaign seasons, such as at last year’s Human Rights Campaign national dinner and a Los Angeles dinner in 2014.
After an introduction by her daughter Ashley Biden, the first lady stepped on stage to the beat of “This Is Me,” a number from “The Greatest Showman” that champions the authentic self.
But, the beginning of her speech was marked by brief disruption. Just 14 seconds into the address, a group of Israel-Hamas war protesters began chanting “ceasefire now” in the back of the banquet hall. Some of the protesters were holding banners that said “No Pride in Genocide” and “Queer Jews Say Ceasefire.”
Security personnel quickly attempted to escort the protesters out of the room. In direct response to the hecklers, the room began to chant back “four more years.” (Click here to check out the audio of this moment.) Jill Biden restarted her speech after the protesters were cleared out and following a standing ovation from the crowd.
She focused her speech on how “[the LGBTQ] community is under attack” and tied many Republican efforts to democratic backsliding. “Rights are being stripped away. Freedoms are eroding,” Jill Biden said passionately to the room.
She elaborated on how democracy and equal rights are being threatened. “Just last night, we had to fend off more than 50 anti-gay amendments that Republicans tried to force into the government spending bill,” she said. “These were extreme measures aimed directly at this community. They served only one purpose: to spread hate and fear.”
The White House signed off on the new government funding bill on the morning of March 23, shortly after the Friday midnight deadline. While President Biden claimed that he was successful in defeating 50 “policy riders” — additional policy changes that “ride” on top of a must-pass bill that would be difficult to pass on their own — a small number of them were included in the signed package, such as the ban on U.S. embassies from flying the Pride flag.
The first lady reinforced Biden’s track record of protecting equal rights for the LGBTQ community. “Thanks to President Biden, marriage equality is now the law of the land,” she said.
She listed other policies in support of the LGBTQ community that were pushed by the president, such as lifting the ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood, allowing trans-Americans to serve the military openly and “standing firmly against conversion therapy.” The room erupted into applause.
The end of the address was marked by several well-received jabs at MAGA Republicans. Referring to the lawmakers who support a far-right political agenda and Trump as “MAGA extremists,” Jill Biden said that they “are seeking to erase these hard-fought gains, trying to unwind all the progress we’ve made. They want us to be afraid.”
She rallied the audience with a call to action: “They want to take our victories away, but we won’t let them. Your president won’t let them. I won’t let them. We’re going to fight. And we will win.”
Before her speech, a celebrity-studded blue carpet kicked off the event. The guest list was filled with Hollywood stars, internet celebrities, and equal rights activists. Jesse Tyler Ferguson, an actor known for his work in Modern Family and also a board member of the Human Rights Campaign, spoke to Annenberg Media before the speech.
“On nights like this when I get to hear these keynote speakers speak, I always leave feeling inspired,” Ferguson said. “And I have a fire within me to continue to do this great work and support these organizations that are really in the trenches and fighting the good fight.”
Ferguson said the current administration is not doing enough to advance equal rights. “If I had to give them a grade, I could go with B minus to B plus. We are OK. We are not doing great. We could do more,” he said. “But that is just politics. It’s an impossible job to please everyone. I am happy with a lot of what they are doing, and I think there is a lot of room for growth as well.”
Madison Werner, an internet celebrity and Los Angeles-based queer activist, spoke to Annenberg Media before the speech about what she was looking for in the first lady’s keynote, and the administration’s efforts to advance LGBTQ rights.
“What I am looking for is her speaking to the future of hopefully another four years when we hopefully don’t have Trump in office, and how she is going to uplift every community that is being marginalized right now — particularly trans people across the nation who are being banned their health care,” Werner said.
The popular content creator said “we are leaps are bounds better” than the previous administration’s efforts to protect LGBTQ rights.
“We have a president right now who is so understanding and so supportive of the queer community that the best thing we can do is to keep having him in office and to see what he does next,” she said. “I’m also really appreciative of how outspoken he has been about the support for the LGBTQ community.”