Don Lemon at HRC dinner: 'When the First Amendment becomes optional, democracy becomes hollow'

Out journalist Don Lemon made a surprise appearance at the Human Rights Campaign’s Greater New York Dinner Saturday night, speaking about the attacks on press freedom in light of his recent arrest and those of other reporters.

“This past week reminded me of something I thought I understood,” he said. “The First Amendment is not just a legal guarantee. ... It is breath in the lungs of a democracy. ... And when that breath is threatened, you feel it before you can explain it.”

“Last week, I felt it,” he continued. “I felt the smothering and suffocation. I saw how quickly a voice can be targeted. How easily truth can be distorted. ... I saw how fast a story can be turned into a warning. But I'm not an activist. I'm not a protester. I 'm a journalist.”

Related: What to know about Don Lemon, the gay journalist arrested by the Trump administration

Lemon was arrested by federal agents January 29 in connection with his coverage of a protest January 18 at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. One of the church’s pastors, David Easterwood, is acting field director at a local office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE has been conducting a crackdown in Minnesota, and an ICE agent shot and killed queer woman Renee Nicole Good January 7 as she was driving by. Then on January 24, Customs and Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, who was attending a protest. The deaths of these two U.S. citizens and the brutal treatment of immigrants has led to outrage.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has claimed that Lemon’s actions at the church went beyond journalistic coverage and that he was complicit in disrupting the service. He is charged with conspiracy against rights and interference with the free exercise of religion at a place of worship, felony offenses under federal civil rights law. He was released January 30 without bail and vowed to keep reporting.

At the HRC dinner, he stressed the importance of a free press and responded to politically driven attacks. “We are watching an administration that treats the Constitution not as a covenant, but as an inconvenience. ... “We are watching leaders who speak of law and order while trampling the very laws that restrain power, picking up people on the streets without due process. We are watching the Bill of Rights praised in speeches and ignored in practice. The First Amendment, especially, has become a target.”

Related: White House celebrates Don Lemon’s arrest with meme as press freedom groups and Dems outraged

“The free press does not exist to reassure the nation,” he continued. “It exists to reveal it to itself. ... We have seen what happens when that revelation is punished. We have seen journalists arrested while covering protests. We have seen reporters threatened for investigating corruption and violation. We have seen books removed from schools because they told inconvenient truths about race, gender, and sexuality. What is that? And we have seen journalists singled out, smeared, and targeted simply for doing their jobs.

“You know who James Baldwin is, right? My literary hero. He understood that clarity carries consequences. Of course you know who Dr. King is. He knew that truth invites punishment. And generations before us understood that when truth threatens power, power will respond. And it won't always be nice. Most of the time, it is not nice. I would say all of the time.

"So last week, I felt the weight of that truth in a very, very personal way. Can you imagine the state having control of your freedom simply because they don't like that you are doing your job? So that was very frightening to me, but in the time that I was there, I thought about all the people who have come before me. I thought about all the people who fought for civil rights, who fought for gay rights, all of the people who were at Stonewall. ... Those are the real heroes."

"But I also felt something else," he went on. "I felt the quiet courage of colleagues who refused to be intimidated. When I walked out, I was surprised by the statements that people had made, by the support that I had. I felt the solidarity of people who understood that this moment was bigger than one story, one journalist, one controversy. Because when a society punishes journalists, it is not punishing a profession. What it's punishing is reality. When reporters are silenced, citizens are blinded. When truth is criminalized, freedom becomes fragile. When the First Amendment becomes optional, democracy becomes hollow.”

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A free press, he added, has to be "unwilling to give false equivalency. Unwilling to give people a platform who simply want to lie and obfuscate and demean people who are not in power, especially people of color and LGBTQ folks."

"So I stand here tonight not as a victim of a difficult week, but as a witness to a larger truth," he said. “Freedom is fragile, but it is not finished. ... It is not finished — yet. Because it can be. Truth is contested, but it is not defeated — yet. Democracy is strained, but it is not silent — yet. Right? We gotta keep fighting. A free press is not holy because journalists are perfect. It is holy because it is one of the few places where power can still be questioned. Where stories can still be told. Where the voiceless can still be heard. And the LGBTQ+ community knows this very deeply and personally. Every right that exists today exists, it because someone refused to be silent. Because someone told the truth when silence would have been safer.” We have become too comfortable, he noted, and "that comfort will be the end of our democracy and the end of our rights."

“As long as there are people willing to speak, as long as there are journalists willing to observe and tell the story, as long as there are communities willing to defend dignity, the light is still on,” he concluded. “It has not gone out — yet. And if the light is still on, the darkness has not won. Thank you for carrying that light, and thank you for your courage, and thank you for letting me bear witness with you tonight.”

The event, held at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in Manhattan, also honored LGBTQ+ activists and allies including actress, singer, and dancer Jane Krakowski, who received the Ally Award, presented by actor and singer Tituss Burgess; fashion designer and Kallmeyer founder Daniella Kallmeyer, who received the Visibility Award, presented by Gilded Age actress Louisa Jacobson; and transgender activist Juli Grey-Owens, founder and executive director of Gender Equality New York, who received the Community Impact Award, presented by Dolores Covrigaru.

Other guests included the voice of the New York subway, Bernie Wagenblast; comedian and Out 100 Honoree Dana Goldberg; U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer; U.S. Sen. Cory Booker; U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler; actress Naomi Watts; and drag star Brita Filter.

“America’s march towards equality suffered a major setback in the last presidential election,” Schumer said. “We are reaping the ugly consequences, but I believe the tide has turned. … And let me just say, I believe, just as I believed a year ago when I was here, that if we keep the faith, if we remain alert and vigilant against the forces of bigotry, if we tap into the power of our numbers, then we can beat back this administration’s agenda.”

“I know we’re in a storm right now, but I’m here to tell you, it’s often exactly at these moments in American history where we have ignited something so special and so beautiful,” Booker said. “This understanding that we are all in this together, that we need each other in many ways, at the very moments of indifference and hate, is when we find a new level of empathy and love.”

HRC President Kelley Robinson addressed the gathering, saying, “I believe this with everything in me: If we stand together, if we fight together, one day soon we will know more joy than grief. Our children will feel just as safe surrounded by the American flag as they do when surrounded by Pride flags. That one day our children won’t just dream about the promise of freedom–they will have it. The question is not whether or not we can win. The question is what are we willing to do. Are you willing to choose hope, to choose love, to choose courage, to choose joy.”

See pictures from the event below.

Tituss Burgess and Jane Krakowski

From left: Tituss Burgess and Jane Krakowski

Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Human Rights Campaign

Louisa Jacobson and Daniella Kallmeyer

From left: Louisa Jacobson and Daniella Kallmeyer

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Human Rights Campaign

Dolores Covrigaru and Juli Grey-Owens

From left: Dolores Covrigaru and Juli Grey-Owens

Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Human Rights Campaign

Timothy Malone and Don Lemon

Don Lemon (right) and his husband, Timothy Malone

Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Human Rights Campaign

Kelley Robinson, Jane Krakowski, Naomi Watts, and Jodie Patterson

From left: Kelley Robinson, Jane Krakowski, Naomi Watts, and Jodie Patterson

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Human Rights Campaign

Kelley Robinson, Juli Grey-Owens, and Cory Booker

From left: Kelley Robinson, Juli Grey-Owens, and Cory Booker

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Human Rights Campaign

Chuck Schumer

Chuck Schumer

Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Human Rights Campaign