appeared in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with Bob Hope to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the birth of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, where the two unveiled a plaque with the signatures of each living former president. In May 1991, Ford, in the capacity of being a private guest of the Formosa Plastics Group, met with President of Taiwan Lee Teng-hui to convey a goodwill message on the part of President Bush. He became the first major American political figure to visit Taipei since 1979. In April 1991, Ford joined former presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter, in supporting the Brady Bill. Three years later, he wrote to the U.S. House of Representatives, along with Carter and Reagan, in support of the assault weapons ban. In April 1997, Ford joined President Bill Clinton, former President Bush, and Nancy Reagan in signing the "Summit Declaration of Commitment" in advocating for participation by private citizens in solving domestic issues within the United States. On January 20, 1998, during an interview at his Palm Springs home, Ford said the Republican Party's nominee in the 2000 presidential election would lose if very conservative in their ideals: "If we get way over on the hard right of the political spectrum, we will not elect a Republican President. I worry about the party going down this ultra-conservative line. We ought to learn from the Democrats: when they were running ultra-liberal candidates, they didn't win." In the prelude to the impeachment of President Clinton, Ford conferred with former President Carter and the two agreed to not speak publicly on the controversy, a pact broken by Carter when answering a question from a student at Emory University. In February 2001, Ford appeared at Chapman University to comment on papers written by students about his presidency and to be presented the Global Citizen medal. In October 2001, Ford broke with conservative members of the Republican Party by stating that gay and lesbian couples "ought to be treated equally. Period." He became the highest ranking Republican to embrace full equality for gays and lesbians, stating his belief that there should be a federal amendment outlawing anti-gay job discrimination and expressing his hope that the Republican Party would reach out to gay and lesbian voters. He also was a member of the Republican Unity Coalition, which The New York Times described as "a group of prominent Republicans, including former President Gerald