Senator sorry for pairing Holocaust with gay rights
Kayla Webley
2005-04-26
The Daily
UW faculty member Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, defended remarks she made comparing the Holocaust with the struggle for gay rights, which incited criticism from members of the Jewish community.
The remarks were made during a floor speech last Thursday when Kohl-Welles, a women’s studies lecturer at the UW, spoke on House Bill 1515, which would have provided equal protection for Washington residents, regardless of sexual orientation. The bill failed by one vote.
During her testimony, Kohl-Welles referenced the Holocaust to provide historical perspective of what “horrors” in history have occurred from discrimination, she said.
Kohl-Welles was asked to publicly retract her statement in an e-mail from Robert Jacobs, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
“Use of the Holocaust in modern political dialogue is inappropriate and offensive, whether it comes from the political right, left or center,” said Jacobs in an e-mail to Kohl-Welles sent Friday. “We’re very sorry to hear you, in your support of 1515, equate the treatment of gays and lesbians in our country with the horrors of the Holocaust.”
Kohl-Welles apologized and clarified what her comparison of the Holocaust and sexual orientation equality today.
“I am very sorry — in fact extremely pained and chagrined — that my floor speech fostered a perception that I equate discrimination of gays and lesbians here to what happened during the Holocaust,” said Kohl-Welles in an e-mail to Jacobs. “My intent was to provide two examples of what I believe to have been among the worst cases of discrimination in history. … This was meant to demonstrate the depths to which entire societies can plunge when the forces of discrimination and hatred are released.”
Jacobs accepted her apology and response to the criticisms.
“Your response is beautiful, thoughtful, clear,” said Jacobs in another e-mail. “The ADL and I accept your explanation that, in the heat of the debate with time restrictions, you shortened your statement and it came out differently than you intended.”
Kohl-Welles said she thought the controversy over her remarks was because of the limits on the time she had to make the statement and also because of increased sensitivity following statements made by legislators who referenced the Holocaust during debate over stem cell research in previous weeks.
“There had been one senator and three house members, all Republican, who had compared in floor debate what happens in embryonic stem cell research to the Holocaust, [because they said] it would be killing millions of unborn babies,” said Kohl-Welles. “I thought that was very offensive … I think the context of how I mentioned the Holocaust was totally different.”
Jacobs said unlike references to the Holocaust used by those opposing stem cell research, [Kohl-Welles] clearly understood how much equating the Holocaust to issues of modern political debate hurts those who were victims.
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