NAACP Chairman Julian Bond talks to Greg In Hollywood before rousing speech at HRC

During a night of exceptional speeches by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and West Hollywood councilman John Duran, it was the right-on-the-mark speech by the NAACP Chairman Julian Bond that was most inspiring at last night’s Human Rights Campaign gala at the Century Plaza Hotel. “Gay and lesbian rights are not special rights in any way,” he said. “It is a universal entitlement of citizenship.”

I scribbled notes down but am trying to track down a transcript so you can read it in its entirety. In the meantime, here is a chat I had with Mr. Bond before the start if the dinner:

Greg In Hollywood: What made you want to be here tonight?

Bond: I’m speaking, I’m expressing the NAACP’s position which, in California and Ohio and Florida and any state where one of these hostile ballot referendum has appeared, we’ve opposed it. We oppose any dimunation of anyone’s rights based on the way they were made as human beings.

GIH:  What did you think of the RNC chair Michael Steele speaking out the way he did in support of gays and on reproductive choice for women?

Bond: I was amazed. I was amazed. I was surprised to see it. I know him slightly. I used to think he was not long fior this job, now I’m sure (chuckles). But I thought it was a wonderful thing to say and a brave thing to say.

GIH: After the election in November, obviously there were some feelings and finger pointing with it being said that African-Americans had largely voted in favor of Proposition 8. Do you feel there are bridges that have to be built?

Bond: Oh sure. I think there always are after elections and I think African-Americans in California did largely vote the way I consider to be the wrong way. But that doesn’t mean they have to do that if this comes up again. You hope the court will solve it and it doesn’t have to come up again. There’s a lot of work to be done by all the people involved in this fight. We all have to make sure our coalitions are as strong as they can be and they’re only as strong as what we did on yesterday and what we plan to do tomorrow.

GIH: Is acceptance of gays and lesbians, including in their own families, sort of the last frontier for the African-American community? Is it something the NAACP focuses on at all?

Bond: Not as much as we ought to. Because surveys show that we, that is African-Americans, are among the people who less like to talk about these subjects and feel less comfortable in discussing them. But it’s without saying that there are a relatively a large number of gay people. Most black people know someone who is gay or have someone who is gay in their family. And most black people support civil unions if not gay marriage. So we’re making very, very steady if slow progress and I hope we make much more.