this was a medal for the entire women's movement. [ applause ] it belongs to shirley chism and bella abzug and patsy mink and in the future it would be great for robin morgan -- i'm lobbying a little bit here. barbara smith. gloria ansuldua and so many more, and it has already honored rosa parks and rachel carson and dorothy hight and my dear friend chief of the cherokee nation who i accompanied when she received her medal. now, of course, with all of that illustrious company i get uppity, i can remember dick cheney received as did henry hyde whose self-named amendment has hurt uncounted numbers of women, especially low-income women for the last 37 years and we're counting. right? but the power of this honor may be even more evident in the withholding than in the giving. i was reminded by ellen chesler, biographer of margaret sanger, that president lyndon johnson even as he signs the first federal and international family planning acts into law refused to bestow the medal of freedom on sanger, he feared reprisal from the catholic church. ellen told me that when she looked at sanger's priva

as bella abzug would say, our movement came from a period of dependence. we were dependent. so we naturally had to get up there and become independent and self-identified, and now we're ready for a declaration of interdependence, of interdependence among our movements and within each other. we are discovering that we in this room and everywhere else and we in nature and we human beings are linked. we are not ranked. so moving forward, if we just do it every day is not rocket science, and it's actually fun. and it is infinitely interesting. just for one simple example, those who are used to power may need to not talk and those with less power may need to learn to talk as much as we listen, right? in both cases it is all about balance and understand the end doesn't justify the means. the means are the ends. the means become the ends. so if we want, at the end of our revolution, not that there is an end, but in our imaginable future progress, if we want to have dancing and friendship and laughter and work we love in the future, we have to be sure to have some dancing and friend

much has changed since bella abzug introduced the equality act of 1974. equal marriage is now the law in 14 states. 21 states and the district of columbia have enacted laws to protect against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. and 16 states and the district of columbia also protect against gender identity discrimination. the supreme court has rejected doma, a law that legalized discrimination against same-sex spouses by calling that law exactly what it was -- unconstitutional. in the private sector, a majority of fortune 500 companies have adopted policies to protect workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation ms. warren: senator paul tsongas wrote legislation to prohibit discrimination against lgbt americans. progress has been slow. the last time the full senate voted on endowas 17 years ago when a version of the law championed by senator kennedy failed to pass by a single vote -- 49-50 back in 1996. in 2007 the house passed a version of enda introduced by congressman frank, but the bill made no progress in the snavment to

[applause] it belongs to shirley chisholm and bella abzug and patsy mink.in the future, it would be great for robin morgan, susan brown levine -- i'm just lobbying a little bit here -- joanne edgar, barbara smith, gloria anzaldua. and so many more. and it has already honored rosa parks and rachel carson and dorothy hyde and delores huerta. and my dear friend, chief of the cherokee nation, wilma mankiller, who i accompanied when she received her medal. now, of course, it's with all of that illustrious company i get uppity. i can remember that dick cheney received -- as did henry hyde, whose self-named amendment has hurt uncounted numbers of women, especially low income women, for the last 37 years and we're still counting, right? but, the power of this honor may be even more evident in the withholding than in the giving. i was reminded by ellen chesler, biographer of margaret sanger, that president lyndon johnson, even as he signed the first federal and international family planning act into law, refused to bestow the medal of freedom on sanger. he feared re