Is It Time to Divest From HRC?

I and many others have had enough of the Human Rights Campaign ("HRC") and its bloated executive salaries, lack of support for local LGBT rights organizations, and most recently endorsement of a Republican that might help the anti-gay GOP retain control of the U.S. Senate.  A piece in Daily Kos looks at the question of whether it is time for liberals and progressives to cease their support of HRC.  I have made my decision and have ceased all contributions to HRC and removed the HRC bumper sticker from my car.  I'd be interested in what readers think.  Here are highlights from the Daily Kos article:

When the gay rights behemoth known as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) endorsed Illinois GOP Sen. Mark Kirk over his Democratic challenger, Rep. Tammy Duckworth, it took a lot of heat for obvious reasons. Control of the Senate has become a critical flashpoint in 2016 now that liberals have a chance to completely reshape the center of gravity of the Supreme Court with a single justice—a justice that GOP Senate leadership has committed to obstructing indefinitely.

In other words, Republican control of the U.S. Senate is single-handedly blocking a once-in-a-generation opportunity for progressives. In the meantime, it’s also a major hurdle (though not the only one) to congressional passage of the Equality Act, which would provide federal nondiscrimination protections to Americans on the basis of “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.”

For many progressives, the notion that an LGBT equality organization would endorse a Republican is anathema. I am not one of them.

As Mark Josef Stern wrote at Slate:

We shouldn’t criticize HRC for attempting to play the long game with Kirk. Rather, we should criticize them for attempting to play the long game stupidly.

Given the current political climate and the particulars of this coming election, there’s just no good explanation for this mind-boggling endorsement. If Tammy Duckworth was a conserva-Dem, maybe. But not only did she have a 100 percent rating from HRC in the 2013-2014 Congress to Kirk’s 78 percent, the Illinois senate race promises to be extremely competitive, and literally every seat counts on the path to Democrats flipping the handful of seats necessary to regain control of the Senate. (If Democrats hold the White House, they actually only need four since the VP is the tie-breaking vote.)

In the interest of full disclosure, Daily Kos has endorsed Duckworth, but that’s not the impetus for my piece. The controversy made my radar again this week when Kirk said he would support Donald Trump if he were the GOP nominee.

In the words of blogger Andy Towle, “HRC’s Appalling Mark Kirk Endorsement Now Comes with Donald Trump.” That’s when I noticed an organic phenomenon on Twitter that struck me a nascent #DivestFromHRC movement. The twitter search “Kirk HRC” yielded a growing number of sentiments like this simple message: Done with support for HRC. So disappointed: Kirk.

I’m not an HRC fan but I’m also not necessarily an HRC hater—they’ve always had their faults as does any large group. My biggest quibble is this: since they’re working on all things LGBT, they aren’t necessarily accountable for anything. In 2009-2010, for instance, they were initially committed to passing hate crimes protections (which did happen) and then the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA). But when repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” jumped ahead of ENDA—mainly because DADT-specific groups applied more outside pressure and actually protested Congress and the White House—HRC jumped on that bandwagon even though ENDA had been their priority. So the group manages to get partial credit for most LGBTQ wins, but it has little accountability for losses. When something fails, they can always say, well, we were working on (fill in the blank) as a way to dodge responsibility.

[S]omething Michelangelo Signorile noted about the Kirk endorsement has stuck with me.

If HRC is not answerable to LGBT people, however — and its president, Griffin, rarely even gives interviews to LGBT media, while speaking often in the larger media — exactly to whom and what is it answerable, and what are its true priorities? One thing is clear: HRC doesn’t speak for the LGBT community, and the sooner that politicians and those in the media grasp that, the smarter they will be.

HRC, by virtue of its size and visibility, has been given carte blanche to say and do whatever it wants while representing LGBTQ Americans. Mainstream media almost always looks to them first when they’re seeking someone to weigh in on LGBTQ rights. And ever more so recently, the group has made a series of decisions that have actually dealt serious blows to the equality push.

HRC isn’t solely responsible for the lack of LGBT debate this election cycle. As I have noted before, lack of grassroots energy has also contributed. But that is perhaps precisely a reason now to find alternatives to funding HRC. We need to be lifting up a multitude of voices. 

Divest? Don’t divest? Perhaps, there are groups you would like to raise up here as possibilities for giving. There’s always the legal groups—Lambda Legal, GLAD, ACLU, Transgender Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (which launched a “WeAreAllNC” campaign this week.) If you’re inherently drawn to electoral giving, there’s the relatively new Lesbian Political Action Committee, or LPAC, (which endorsed Tammy Duckworth this week). Perhaps some state or regional groups in the South, like SONG (Southerners On New Ground, @ignitekindred).

HRC's Misplaced Values and Spending Patterns

In response to my last post about the Human Rights Campaign's insane endorsement of Republican Mark Kirk over Democrat Tammy Duckworth, a reader did some digging and found that the top officers of HRC were paid over $2,000,000 in 2014.  How much did HRC give to state level groups fighting against anti-gay extremists? Here are two examples: Equal Rights Houston got the whopping amount of $10,000. Equality North Carolina got $25,000. Equality Foundation of Georgia $25,000.  Michelangelo Signorile hit the nail on the head when he suggested that top HRC officials are far more concerned about keeping the money coming in from gay Republicans (who in my view are akin to Jews who would have supported the Nazi Party in the 1930's) than they are about the rights and lives of those of us out in the hinterland.  Here's what my reader sent to me - it speaks volumes:

http://hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com//files/images/campaign/HRC-990-2014.pdf

HRC top management salaries are on page 9. Chad Griffin got $404,712, seven of the top executives got over $200K EACH and another got $195K. (See also page 109.) I will let these figures speak for themselves.

To put this into further context, Schedule I, beginning on page 103, shows the cash support provided to the 30 organizations that received cash support. I point out that Equal Rights Houston got the whopping amount of $10,000. Equality North Carolina got $25K as did the Equality Foundation of Georgia. We know what the status of equality in Houston and North Carolina is now and what the status of equality in Georgia is likely to be should the sociopaths and psychopaths get their way. I venture to suggest that had the half-million dollars or so wasted on a couple of vice-presidents been used instead for productive advocacy, our brothers and sisters might not now be third-class citizens. 

Human Rights Campaign Is Helping the GOP to Retain the Senate

I have been critical of the Human Rights Campaign in the past and most recently by the organization's insane endorsement of GOP senator Mark Kirk over LGBT supportive Democrat Tammy Duckworth.  I think for many, this last action is the final straw and HRC - which likes to describe itself as the larges LGBT rights organization - is perhaps poised to see a massive exodus of folks.  I am asking them to cease counting me as a member (like the Catholic Church, until one formally says "remove me from the membership rolls" HRC will continue to count one as a member to swell the numbers).  One of the best take downs of HRC is a piece by Michelangelo Signorile in Huffington Post.  Here are excerpts:

In the past 24 hours, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBT group, has come under intense fire on social media, including from many transgender people, for its lack of a strategy in combating the rapid passage of a heinous anti-LGBT law in North Carolina which strips existing LGBT anti-discrimination ordinances in the state and bars transgender people from using public restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

But that criticism has followed an even more intense, week-long pummeling of the group on social media as well as from pundits and commentators, because of the group’s very curious endorsement earlier this month of Senator Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican whose defeat in November is critical to the Democrats winning back control of the Senate.

Kirk, in a very tough re-election, has come out in support of The Equality Act, a sweeping federal anti-discrimination bill protecting LGBT people, and had voted to end “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But Kirk has only earned a score of 78 percent out of 100 percent from HRC, while his opponent, Democratic House member Tammy Duckworth, has a score of 100 — in addition to a real shot at taking the seat and handing Democrats the Senate. David Nir, political director at Daily Kos, called the endorsement as “appalling as it is embarrassing,” and “pathetic and stupid.”

At The New Republic, Eric Sasson rightly pointed to HRC’s “serious diversity problem” per an internal report that leaked, and to the optics of backing a white male Republican with a meager score over a woman of color and a combat veteran who lost both of her legs in the Iraq war — and who has a perfect score. Chris Geidner at Buzzfeed had obtained the internal report last year, which called HRC “exclusionary,” “sexist,” and “homogenous.” This endorsement certainly lent more credence to that.

It’s hard to fathom that anyone who supports full equality believes these meager attempts are really worth keeping the Senate in the hands of the GOP. It’s not the ‘90s, when individual senators had more clout and we could pass legislation with simple majorities. Mitch McConnell changed the way the Senate operated — and he’ll be the beneficiary if Kirk wins. HRC, often in that ‘90s time warp, has worked against the best interests of the LGBT community as recently as 2014, when the group was still supporting the narrow Employment Non-Discrimination Act, with its terrible religious exemption, while every other national LGBT group — except the Log Cabin Republicans — had joined the 21st century and pulled support.

The simple truth is that in 2016 in Illinois we don’t need Mark Kirk — he needs us.  . . . . And the first vote he’ll take upon winning back his seat will be a cowardly one to make the anti-gay McConnell (with an HRC score of 0) the Senate Majority Leader again.

There’s no question that the Democrats’ path to taking back the Senate very much includes defeating Kirk, who is in the bluest state among those where GOP senators are embattled. So HRC’s action does raise questions about how committed the group really is to seeing the Democrats take back the Senate, and if it perhaps has conflicting interests.  Daily Kos’s David Nir surmised that HRC’s Kirk endorsement is all about keeping “donations flowing from corporations and wealthy gay Republicans,” and he may be on to something.

[I]t’s no secret that GOP leaders have focused on putting all of their efforts on retaining the Senate. Surely Paul Singer will be critical in that effort, bringing hard and steady pressure to bear wherever it is necessary. It’s not a surprise, then, that the American Unity Fund, which Singer founded, has been tweeting and retweeting support of HRC for its endorsement of Mark Kirk, in what seems like an attempt to counter the many LGBT people who are expressing their anger and to whom HRC believes it is not answerable.

If HRC is not answerable to LGBT people, however — and its president, Griffin, rarely even gives interviews to LGBT media, while speaking often in the larger media — exactly to whom and what is it answerable, and what are its true priorities? One thing is clear: HRC doesn’t speak for the LGBT community, and the sooner that politicians and those in the media grasp that, the smarter they will be.

Personally, I believe that all that HRC cares about is money - money needed to retain the plush salaries of those like Chad Griffin, a Judas to the LGBT community.  Stop making donations to HRC and demand that you not be counted as a member.

HRC Stupidly Endorses a Republican Over a Pro-LGBTQ Democrat

Once again the Human Rights Campaign ("HRC") is demonstrating why I have ceased all contributions to the organization and stripped the HRC bumper sticker off my car. HRC has endorsed Republican Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois for re-election over his challenger, Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth.  The apparent motivation was to reward Kirk for his co-sponsorship of the federal Equality Act, but demonstrates HRC amnesia about other things that Kirk has done to the LGBT community.  A column in Slate rightly takes HRC to task.  Here are highlights:

HRC recently committed an unforced error of astonishing ineptitude that necessitates a re-evaluation of the group’s core mission: It endorsed Republican Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois for re-election over his challenger, Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth.

If you squint, you can see why HRC thought this endorsement was canny and logical. In announcing the endorsement, HRC President Chad Griffin praised Kirk for co-sponsoring the Equality Act, a federal LGBTQ rights bill which Kirk’s Republican colleagues are devoted to quashing.

Some liberals, including DailyKos’ David Nir, interpret this endorsement as a cynical ploy to draw in more Republican donors. That may be part of the calculus, but I lean toward taking HRC at its word. 

There may be room for such a strategy in the House of Representatives, and in state legislatures—and, in other years, in the Senate. It is a political fact that LGBTQ rights will be permanently stymied if Democrats are the party of equality and Republicans are the party of anti-gay animus. As a lobbying organization, HRC needs to maintain a broad bipartisan stance, and to generously reward Republicans who break from the party line. That’s how gay rights advocates won marriage equality in New York—by persuading a few key Republican state senators to defect with the promise of future financial support.

This tactic can obviously work, so we shouldn’t criticize HRC for attempting to play the long game with Kirk. Rather, we should criticize them for attempting to play the long game stupidly. Everyone knows that the Equality Act—and every other piece of pro-LGBTQ legislation—can only pass the Senate if Democrats control the chamber.

There is no possibility that Republican leadership will permit LGBTQ rights bills to come to a vote. The Senate map is quite favorable to Democrats in 2016, but their only path to victory involves picking off Republican senators in purple states—senators like Mark Kirk. In other words, HRC’s goal of rewarding pro-LGBTQ GOP senators runs directly counter to their broader goal of, you know, passing pro-LGBTQ legislation.

Endorsing Kirk might be more palatable if he were running against a conservative Democrat with a middling record on gay and trans rights. He is not. Duckworth, his Democratic opponent, has maintained perfect voting record on LGBTQ equality during her time in the House. In fact, HRC awarded her a 100 percent score on her equality report card. Kirk scored a 78.

It’s wonderful that Kirk supports equality, but his own leaders—men like Sen. Mitch McConnell—will never let allow his pro-LGBTQ bills to become law. Kirk’s about-face on LGBTQ rights is very nice, and may presage a future shift within his party. But right now there is only one way to pass the Equality Act, and that is to restore Democratic leadership in the Senate. Accomplishing this objective will likely require Duckworth to defeat Kirk. And I am deeply puzzled that HRC, an organization that prides itself on pragmatism, does not seem to grasp that very simple reality.