Bloomberg
By Margaret Talev and Justin Sink
June 24, 2015
The president made clear that after his support for the LGBT community, he didn't deserve to be heckled in his own East Room.
President Barack
Obama usually plays it cool when faced with the occasional heckler, but
when one of his own invited guests to the East Room of the White House
turned on him at a LGBT pride month event on
Wednesday he shut it down fast.
"Hey. Listen.
You're in my house," Obama told the lady in the black dress, who was
identified in a press release from the anti-deportation group Not1More
as Jennicet Gutiérrez, transgender and undocumented.
(The White House, of course, is also known as "The People's House.")
"As a general rule I
am just fine with a few hecklers," Obama said, while saying this was
different. "My attitude is if you're eating the hors d'oeuvres...you
know what I'm saying? And drinking the booze..."
“This is a rowdy crowd.”
Obama told the
heckler, "Shame on ya. You shouldn't be doing this," and asked his
security detail, "Can we escort this person out? You can either stay and
be quiet or we'll have to take you out."
Finally, he decided to make the call. "OK, can we have this person removed please?"
The
anti-deportation group said that Gutierrez, who called on Obama to stop
all deportations, felt she could not celebrate while transgender
detainees were in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
The roughly
two-minute disruption aside, the president, joined by Vice President Joe
Biden and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers,
seemed to enjoy the festive event. "We've got a lot
to celebrate," he said, and added that he would be watching for a
Supreme Court decision on gay marriage. Whatever the decision, he said,
there had been an incredible shift towards accepting gay marriage in
America. "This is a rowdy crowd," he also said. "I
don't want you guys to break anything while you're here."
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