Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Joins Speaks and Marches in Queens Pride Parade

June 1, 2014

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Everyone it is such a pleasure to be at this extraordinary parade. It is in number the second largest pride parade in the city, but in spirit it is tied for first, don’t you agree? I want to thank the whole parade committee, that has done extraordinary work and made this parade stronger every year. I want to thank the grand marshals – I love this name of this organization – Chutney Pride, a Caribbean LGBT group here in Queens. God bless them for all the good work they do. Melissa Sklarz, congratulations to everyone in elected office who fights for you every day. And you have some great members of the City Council. I want to thank Danny Dromm for all he does.

[Applause]

And I want to thank Danny Dromm for doing it always in both English and Spanish. And Jimmy Van Bramer, thank you.

[Applause]

Queens members who do so much. All the other elected officials and members of the council here from all over the city, because this parade matters to all of us and it represents something powerful to all of us. And I want you to know, this parade is a celebration of life. It is a celebration of diversity and inclusion and strength in this city. It’s also a moment to remember the things we’ve all fought for. This parade is always in memory of Julio Rivera and that senseless death, that person we lost who had such love from his family and community. We remember him and honor him by fighting against intolerance, by fighting against bias, by fighting against any form of violence against the LGBT community. You have my commitment, the City of New York stands with you, the NYPD stands with you to stamp out bias and intolerance in all its forms.

[Applause]

I just want to say two more things. Here in this city, we are making progress. With your help, we are making progress. We now have – and I’m so proud of this – we now have an HIV/AIDS rent cap of 30 percent so people who are struggling do not have to end up on the streets, so they can live in decency.

[Applause]

Our city is doing that now. We now are investing in shelters for homeless and runaway youth, so unfairly – in some cases so tragically – turned out by their own family. But we welcome them, we support them, we embrace them and we will be there for them. The City of New York makes that commitment to our youth. And I’m marching in this parade proudly. Proudly here at this parade, but I won’t be in a parade that doesn’t include all New Yorkers.

[Applause]

Finally brothers and sisters, take a moment to celebrate progress. I know so many people here today have fought for years for justice. I know sometimes it was a very tough fight, and the odds looked long. But this number I’m about to tell you makes me so proud and something everyone should feel. New York State turned decisively for marriage equality. That helped the momentum nationwide. Two weeks ago Oregon and Pennsylvania legalized same-sex marriage. Now the total is 19 states of the union that recognize marriage equality.

[Applause]

That is progress in an extraordinary amount of time, an extraordinarily brief amount of time. Because of your efforts, equality is spreading like wildfire across this country. And we are living up to the ideals of this country. And that is something to celebrate. Happy Pride everyone.

[BREAK]

Off-topic Q&A:

Mayor: I certainly encourage everyone to work together, and I think it’s a great day for the progressive agenda. I think this is going to be a real decisive moment in terms of changing the State Senate and getting a lot more of our progressive agenda done. So I’m really happy with the outcome.

Question: Okay. But is it accurate that you were involved in sort of –

Mayor: I did everything I could to encourage people to work together, and I think in the end people found they had a lot of common ground.

Question: [Inaudible] promises about changing the Senate leadership over [inaudible]

Mayor: Clearly the governor had said previously that he had lost patience with the IDC. He’s made that abundantly clear. And it’s clear that he believes in terms of his agenda and the agenda we all share that the only way to get it done is with a Democratic State Senate. And that’s what we’re all going to do together and I think it’s going to be an extraordinary coalition and a successful coalition.

Question: Just on another topic, there have been tens of thousands of health code violations at community-based organization pre-K programs. Does that concern you at all? And what is your plan to make sure that the new ones that you’re opening up are in compliance and are good for kids?

Mayor: Well first as a parent, of course it concerns me if any facility of any kind that serves children is not in full compliance with the law. So that’s our job always to push each and every facility to quickly get in compliance with the law. I want to differentiate the facilities, the sites that are going to be part of our pre-K program from others that provide some kind of services to children but are not part of our pre-K program. And that’s a very important distinction. And the ones that we plan to open in September – as you know, we accepted some sites, we rejected other sites. The sites we have accepted we feel very good about the safety of. We’ll continue to reinforce. We put a huge amount of time and energy and personnel into  the inspections and the follow up. So we’re very serious about safety. Any site that doesn’t meet our safety standards won’t be part of our program. Thanks guys.