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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, good morning everyone. Washington Post columnist and MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart is our first guest today and we're going to get right to him. He hosts the Sunday morning 10:00 AM to noon slot called The Sunday Show on MSNBC. In addition to writing his column, we'll talk about some national and some New York issues with him, Jonathan is a New Yorker and was on the Daily News editorial board as some of you know before going to the Washington Post.

Locally, Jonathan's latest column takes the position that the organizers of next month's pride march in the city should allow LGBT police officers to March as a group. The organizers are saying no as of now. Nationally, we'll talk about some of the bills stuck in Congress. Reporters are saying today could be a big day for the infrastructure bill negotiations, though Democrats and Republicans are more than a trillion dollars apart.

Also, on this week of the anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd, Congress is so far not succeeding and passing any version of the George Floyd justice and policing act, though there is some desire on each side of the aisle for some kind of a bill. Jonathan, for those of you don't know also hosts a podcast called Cape Up, and he interviewed Minnesota Attorney General and former congressman Keith Ellison, who suggested a possible compromise. We'll play that clip, and more as we welcome Washington Post columnist, podcaster, and host on MSNBC Sunday Mornings back to WNYC. Hey, Jonathan, welcome back.

Jonathan Capehart: Thanks a lot, Brian. Great to be here.

Brian: Can we do the local story first? Want to let people know if they haven't gotten engaged in this issue yet, exactly what the issue is with the pride much, and then why you're coming down where you are.

Jonathan: Heritage of Pride, which is the organization that organizes the annual epic pride march on the last Sunday in New York announced, I guess a couple of weeks ago, a bunch of changes to the participation of police in the parade. On one hand, it's limiting access of police officers, those who are on duty obsessively to provide security for the parade, keeping them a block or so away from the actual festivities.

The other thing that they did, and this is the decision that I wrote about, they bar LGBTQ police officers from marching under their own banner. The gay officers, police organization, barring those officers from marching in the parade in uniform. My column, the headline is pretty clear, let LGBTQ cops march in New York City's Pride Parade.

The decision by Heritage of Pride, the basis of it, I understand the upset, there's a lot of anger within, excuse me. The Magnolia trees are actually blooming here in Washington and I discovered--

Brian: You're allergic.

Jonathan: -that I'm allergic, so I apologize for the frog in my throat.

Brian: Do you need a minute?

Jonathan: No, I'm fine. The basis for the the decision by Heritage of Pride is understandable anger within the LGBTQ community, and particularly Black and Brown LGBTQ community, anger at the police for many things that the NYPD, the police department has done to the community from going after trans New Yorkers who are "walking while trans" from-- There is a police killing of known trans activists in New York, I believe it was in 2019 that hasn't been resolved to the community's satisfaction. I believe the police officers were not disciplined.

Then, and most importantly for a lot of folks in the community from what I understand, last June in lower Manhattan, there was the Queer Liberation March for Black lives and against police brutality. A peaceful march where marchers in the end ended up being pepper sprayed by police, by the NYPD. There has been long standing, long brewing anger at the NYPD within the community. I understand that, I note that in my column, but in the end, I come down and say, "Why take out that anger on LGBTQ cops?"

Really, Brian, it is not lost on me that the Stonewall Riot was the result of the community pushing back against harassment and bullying and worse by police officers that led to the first punches being thrown by the community standing up in its own defense.

Brian: Of course, that's why the pride March takes place when it does in late June, that was the time in 1969 of that police raid on the Stonewall.

Jonathan: Right. Since then, that is the spark of the modern LGBT civil rights movement. Part of that movement was trying to get the country, get Americans, get our family members most importantly, and neighbors, and friends to recognize that we are here, that pushing out and trying to be seen and ending invisibility. When the AIDS epidemic hit the community, remember the ACT UP mantra was "silence equals death."

It was encouraging people to come out of the closet to tell our stories to make it clear that not only we're here, we're queer, get used to it, but to also recognize that not to sound trite, but we are everywhere. Showing people that we are in every facet of American life, and de-stigmatizing being out loud and proud. One of the ways of doing that, having LGBTQ police officers marching in that parade, in their uniform is a signal to the community, is a signal to the city, and overall a signal to the country that being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning is not something to hide from.

It is not something to be ashamed of. It is something to celebrate. When I went to my first Pride Parade, good lord, now, probably the first time in New York was in 1991. We're talking years ago, it was thrilling to see those police officers March also because gay men and lesbians were not allowed to serve openly in the military. You could have gotten kicked out of the military if you were found out to be gay or lesbian, let alone transgender.

To see, again, law enforcement officers marching in uniform, under a banner that says to everyone "We are gay police officers," 30 years ago was thrilling. I think to deny those police officers the opportunity to be proud of who they are and to do so in uniform, it's a sad decision. I should point out that here in Washington, I think the circumstances were a little different, but in Washington, the LGBTQ police officers here have not been allowed to march in the Pride Parade here, which is usually around the first week in June. They haven't been allowed to march since 2018.

Brian: Jonathan Capehart is our guest I guess for relevance to this issue, we should say that you've been out for a long time. This is not news just for standing in this issue. You've been out as a proud gay man for many years. You've talked about your relationship with your husband and lots of other stuff. Jonathan's latest Washington Post opinion piece is called, "Let LGBTQ cops march in New York City's Pride Parade."

LGBTQ New Yorkers listening right now we invite your calls on this. Should an NYPD LGBT group be allowed to march in uniform and as a group under their own banner at the pride march in your opinion, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Is this reminiscent to you, or would it be a false comparison? I know it reminds people at least on the top surface of LGBT Irish people not being allowed to match as a group with a banner at the St. Patrick's Day Parade for many years because parade organizers saw themselves as upholding Catholic church doctrine.

Now, it's certainly not equivalent because it's not like the organizers of the St. Patrick's Day Parade had any grievance, or any form of legitimate grievance, certainly with people just for being LGBT Irish, you just went down a list of legitimate grievances that the LGBT community has with the NYPD as an institution, but does it remind you of that? Is there a conversation around that comparison that's going to pop up in a lot of people's minds to have in any way?

Jonathan: It might pop up, but they're not equivalent. The one thing that connects them, though, is the issue of acceptance or the issue of exclusion. If you've been to a pride parade, you know that the pride parade is all about the celebration of acceptance and inclusion. I think that's what's happening with the police officers being able to match under their own banner, our our police officers, that's what makes this so dissonant for a lot of people. How could this community that is all about acceptance and inclusion suddenly be excluding people, not for who they are, but for what they do?

A lot of people, Brian, I'm looking forward to the phone calls that are going to come in. A lot of people in New York, particularly Black and brown New York, queer New York, very angry with me about this piece. Again, I get where they're coming from, and I understand the anger, but the anger at the NYPD, unless someone can point to me police officers who stand accused of abusing the community, are themselves LGBTQ, I have a hard time with the incredible broad brush that those officers are being painted with.

Brian: Right. You don't think it's the LGBTQ cops who are committing bad acts against LGBTQ civilians, is that what you were just saying?

Jonathan: Yes.

Brian: You know what, our lines did explode as soon as I put out to call.

Jonathan: I told you. [chuckles]

Brian: So let's take a caller. Leon and West Farms 10460 in the Bronx, Leon, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Leon: Oh, my God, Brian, first time, a long time. I've been waiting a long time to say that.

Brian: So glad you're on.

Leon: I would just like to say, Johnson, we're not coming after these queer cops. I think pride is for all queer people. If you're a police officer, maybe you can come to the match, but just don't wear your police uniform. I can share an experience from a couple years ago, where the city during pride is in gridlock. I tried to get directions to get from one part of the city to another, and I spoke to a cop and I'm just like, "You know why this match is happening, it's because of the way that police officers have treated queer people."

This police officer places hand on his gun to get an aggressive stance towards me and said, "Are you threatening me?" This is an NYPD Sergeant based on his badge, whatever he's wearing. I'm just saying, we don't want police there, especially because of what happened last year, which you brought up.

Brian: What do you think about Jonathan's last argument before you got on? I don't know if you could hear it while we were getting you up on hold, but he was saying, unless it's the LGBTQ cops as individuals, which he doesn't think is likely the case who you can identify or who can be identified as abusing LGBTQ civilians then this group should be allowed to match.

Leon: Sure. They should match with LGBT people, not police officers. The police as an institution has just-- Literally has caused this match to occur. It's a protest against them in a way, so I don't think they should show up as cops shelter themselves.

Brian: Leon, thank you so much. Don't make it last time, now that you've made it a first time. Let's go on to Jay W. in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello, Jay W., thank you for calling in.

Jay: Hi. Actually, my first name is just Jay. I'm actually one of the organizers of the Annual Queer Liberation Match that was attacked last year. The Queer Liberation Match was actually founded with the tenet of getting cops out of pride. That's something that needs to be kept in anytime someone mentions the cops attacking us because last year's Queer Liberation Match was the Queer Liberation Match for Black lives and against police brutality, and that match was an attack by the police.

The other thing that folks need to understand is that the NYPD has been attacking queer and trans-led protests for the last year since the beginning of the reckoning after George Floyd's murder. Three weeks before the Queer Liberation Match, a queer and trans-led protest, a Black and brown queer and trans-led protest, was attacked by the NYPD. A completely non-violent protests, a noted act up, and Queer Liberation Match volunteer organizer Jason Rosenberg had his arm broken. Marti Gould Cummings was a candidate for city council was given a concussion, both were held in cells without receiving any medical care for hours.

In the ensuing year since last year Queer Liberation Match, the NYPD has attacked the weekly Stonewall protests multiple times, at least seven or eight if not more times. The other point is that throughout all of this and for the decades of attacks and persecution of Black and brown trans women, GOAL as an organization, the Gay Officers Action League, has been silent. They have never once spoken up for our communities and our community members who have been attacked.

Brian: That's that group of gay officers that would match under that banner. Jonathan, you want to engage with Jay, what would you say to some of the points that he's been making?

Jonathan: There's no argument that I have with Jay in what he's recounting and he's giving even more detail to the little bit that I gave in my comments earlier and certainly more detailed than I was able to put in my column that ran on Monday. Like I said, the anger at the NYPD, by the LGBTQ community, and specifically Black and brown queer New York is as Jay just outline is understandable. It is raw. His specific knock at GOAL in terms of being silent on attacks against Black and brown trans-New Yorkers is a very serious charge. I would be interested to hear what GOAL has to say in response to that.

That gets closer to-- To my mind, if the community has a problem with LGBTQ officers and their silence or inaction, on issues facing the community, that is a conversation that I am eager to listen to, but the broad brush conversation, and I understand to go back to what Leon was talking about as a New Yorker, going to a police officer and talking to them and asking questions, and to have the police officer put his hand on his gun and step forward to him and to say, whicw would send a chill down my spine, "Are you threatening me?" To have those words come from a police officer is very distressing, would be very troubling.

There are issues that the community and the NYPD need to work out. The idea of the police officers matching, but not in uniform, I've heard this, to my mind, I take it in as a compromise. I wonder if that is something that would even be entertained by GOAL, but I do think that there must be a way for LGBTQ cops who are proud of who they are and are proud of overall the profession that they're in, there has to be a way for them to be able to celebrate pride in full.

Brian: Jay, thank you for your call.

Jay: Thanks too Jonathan.

Brian: We're going to go onto another call. Jason in the East Village, you're on WNYC. Jason, thank you for calling in.

Jason: Oh, thank you. Hello.

Brian: Hey there.

Jason: I was going to say it's almost pointless to put me on the air. I just wanted to iterate that I agree exactly with your guest. I think it's ironic, very ironic actually for the parade this year to be not inclusive and to be painting, as the guest said, a broad rush over a very large community. I have to say I'm not particularly a fan of the institution of policing as it's gone down over the years, but I think keeping them out exacerbates the problem. It hardens divisions, it creates more of an us versus them situation rather than trying to understand somebody else's perspective and individual history.

Brian: Jason, thank you very much. One more Sherry and Edison, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sherry. Thank you for calling in.

Sherry: Hi, folks. I'm having my very own driveway moment as you mentioned during the fun drive, but I wanted to address a question to the point that not everyone has the same relationship with police. Pride, I'm a long-term activist. I've been an activist since there was only gay in the lexicon, and now we've got a host of representation and toward that end, we want our trans brothers and sisters and especially our trans brothers and sisters of color to feel comfortable.

For those who are not doing work within that community, there are a lot of people who feel, you'll pardon the expression, triggered by the uniform, by the visibility of the weapons. When you have, it's certainly important for LGBTQIA+ officers, Queer officers to feel comfortable, but we want everyone to be active in pride. I help organize pride in New Jersey and I do work with InterPride which is the international organization of people who put on these events.

One of the things I'm concerned about is there's a rush to judgment when people read headlines rather than understanding the year of discussions that have gone on behind the headlines with different groups as we're trying to be more inclusive as the past year has shown us, a lot of us, I am a white person. For those of us who have learned how complicit we were in a system of which we had been ignorant, once the scales fall from your eyes, you can't un-see things, and that commitment to make the world better for everyone is renewed even stronger.

Jonathan, journalists like yourself if you can use your voice to dig deeper. Andrew Sullivan also had a very opinionated piece that when you come from a perspective where you have so many positive relationships with police officers, and for those of us who have relationships that go back 30 years with the police in our communities with whom we work closely to produce our events, is hurtful on both sides, passions run high, and the truth is somewhere in the middle and we need to dig down to that deeper truth so that we can have a better world. Thank you for the time.

Brian: Sherry, thank you. I'm sure that gave many other people a driveway moment as they couldn't take their ears off of you. Jonathan, one more comment on this and I want to save our last few minutes to talk about the George Floyd justice and policing act in your interview with Keith Ellison.

Jonathan: I appreciate what Sherry said. This is radio, not television and for those who don't know, I am an out gay married man, but I'm also African-American. I come to this table with all of my identities at the fore. Again, I am trying to be more nuanced in my view of this and not just viewing just a headline and then popping off and even in Sherry's comments it stands out to me that there are two issues at play here.

It is police presence at the parade in the way that Leon talked about the first color, where he went up to a police officer, trying to get around the parade, that's one issue. The second and what Sherry rightly says, that is triggering for many black and brown LGBTQ folks in New York, that I understand. The other issue is the more discrete issue which I wrote about, and that is allowing LGBTQ police officers match in the parade in uniform. In terms of digging deeper, that is the issue that I am trying to deal with or I was dealing with in in my column.

Brian: My guest is Washington post columnist, MSNBC host, and host of the podcast Cape Up Jonathan Capehart. We've got about five minutes left, and I want to touch at least one other issue with you because on this week of the anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd, Congress is so far not succeeding in passing any version of the George Floyd justice and policing act. This is another thing that you've been keeping your eye on deeply. You interviewed for your podcast Cape Up, the Minnesota Attorney General and former Congressman Keith Ellison.

People should know as state attorney general, Ellison is the guy who just won the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd in case you didn't know that. Ellison's got a lot of standing here between that and his having previously been a Congressman. In this clip, he tells you on your podcast that he would endorse a potential compromise that would allow police officers to keep their individual immunity from lawsuits against them personally for misconduct on the job, the so-called qualified immunity that currently protects them from cash damages, personal lawsuits against them, you asked if Ellison thinks that's a compromise he could support, and here's how he responded.

Attorney General Keith Ellison: I think that we should get rid of qualified immunity. I think it's a bad doctrine. No legislature ever passed it. It's a court doctrine and it's a shield for a police officer's bad conduct. I think it's a bad business, but let me tell you, get that bill through, and if you can get it all through, get it all through. If you can get a modified version of qualified immunity, get that through.

If you got to give up calling immunity for now, then get the rest of it through. By all means, get something good out of this. That's what I say. Of course, I'm not at the table and it's a lot harder at the table than it is on television commenting about it. I'll just defer to my good friends who know what they're doing and know much more about the negotiations than me.

Brian: Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison, with Jonathan Capehart. Jonathan, put that response from Attorney General Ellison into context of where your understanding is that the negotiations in Congress actually are.

Jonathan: Even though they missed the deadline that President Biden's set of May 25th, the exact one year to the day after the murder of George Floyd, even though they missed that deadline, talks are ongoing and they have been going for a long time. I did an interview Monday with Congresswoman Karen Bass, who is the lead author and sponsor in the House where the Georgia Floyd Justice and Policing Act is already passed. She said that they have been meeting by phone virtually, there've been constant three or four times a week for weeks now. The number one among the big issues that still is the sticking point is qualified immunity.

Who knows whether they're going to come to some compromise. One compromise was the one that Senator Scott proposed a few weeks ago, and that was stripped qualified immunity from police departments, making it possible for civilians to sue police departments for misconduct. The knock against that is, "Sure you sue police departments, the money ends up being paid by the taxpayers and that won't do anything for police accountability." Qualified immunity is still a big sticking point.

What I think Attorney General Ellison is saying, and it's the same thing that house majority Whip James Kleiber and of South Carolina in the House made also a couple of weeks ago, and that is qualified immunity or not, we need to get this bill done. We need to get this passed. When you have a State Attorney General like Keith Ellison, who as you noted, Brian, just won the the Derrick Chauvin trial, if he's out there saying, "Pass a bill, and we can come back to the hard stuff later," I wonder what impact that has on the negotiations. Actually, as I say that I recall when I mentioned that to Congresswoman Bass in a Washington Post live interview on Monday, she deflected, but I had this strong sense that she was not thrilled by that prospect.

She's very optimistic that she and Senator Booker and Senator Scott will come to some agreement, so is Senator Booker from what I've seen. I've known Congresswoman Bass for a long time. She is a realist. She has both her feet planted on the ground and if she is up, and she has been an activist, a longtime activist for decades in Los Angeles, if she is optimistic still about the prospects of passage of the George Floyd justice and Policing Act, then I will remain optimistic until which time we get concrete signs that the bill isn't going to pass. I'm going to remain optimistic.

Brian: You are our second guest this week talking about that bill, and we leave it there today, unresolved one year and two days after the murder of George Floyd. We thank Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post columnist, host of his podcast there called Cape Up and he hosts the Sunday morning 10:00 AM to noon slot called the Sunday Show on MSNBC, that's 10:00 AM to noon, Eastern Time. Jonathan, thanks as always.

Jonathan: Thanks, Brian.

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