Two letters appeared in the gay press advocating for HRC to get the pink brick. If you haven’t voted already, please do so. Ballots are due by Monday. Read below for more information on HRC and tell your friends! Go to this link to get a printable ballot to mail in.
http://www.sfpride.org/parade/images/Ballot08-GM-eng.pdf
peace,
Robert
Admittedly, the Human Rights Campaign doesn’t belong in the company of media moron Bill O’Reilly, or any murderous dictator, extremist characters who frankly don’t care what we think. HRC should, however, care what we think. And we think HRC deserves the Pink Brink.
It’s important to remember that – shortly before the ENDA debacle – HRC and its president, Joe Solmonese, vowed publicly that HRC would never again betray the transgender community, as it had many times before, in pursuit of its legislative agenda. Because we are one LGBT community. And, because transgender Americans, and others in our community who may be “butch” or “femme” or gender variant, like 15-year-old murder victim Lawrence King, are subjected to especially horrific levels of hate violence, poverty, and unemployment.
However, when Representative Barney Frank introduced an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that excluded transgender Americans, hundreds of LGBT organizations fought hard to get the inclusive ENDA reinstated. Not so HRC. HRC went “neutral” – the only organization to do so, saying one thing in public, doing another in private, etc.
Then – just before the House vote in November – HRC secretly went behind PFLAG, the Task Force, Lambda Legal, the National Association of LGBT Community Centers, NCLR, the Transgender Law Center, Equality California (and every other statewide LGBT organization in the U.S.), and the other 300-plus organizations in the United ENDA coalition, to support the exclusionary bill. HRC’s devastated peers learned of HRC’s deception via an article on Gay.com.
So HRC has earned the Pink Brick. And HRC’s president – who, instead of uniting and advancing the LGBT community, reignited trans-bigotry and set the movement back 15 years – should be fired. As for the HRC Board of Governors here in SF, whose “leaders” have failed to muster any real words or deeds in support of transgender San Franciscans, and now have resorted to whining: you should be ashamed of yourselves for your complicity.
John Newsome
San Francisco
HRC’s trans history
Recently, the SF Pride Committee nominated the Human Rights Campaign for the Pink Brick Award [”Pride nominates HRC for Pink Brick,” February 28]. This decision should be seen in its historical context. HRC has a long history of, at best, ignoring the needs of the transgender community. Its most recent transgression was deciding, without consultation, to drop protection of the transgender community from coverage by the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. This decision should not be viewed in isolation nor seen as just a necessary incremental step. The transgender community has consistently had to push HRC to represent them, and over the years HRC has consistently resisted these efforts.
In recent years, HRC has made a show of being more inclusive, but when the rubber hit the road on ENDA, it failed the test and dropped gender identity. What was different this time was that in an incredibly short period of time, over 350 national, state, and local organizations stood up to HRC and said no. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual leaders from across the country told HRC that it was damaging to the long interests of our movement to drop coverage for gender identity, not only because it was the moral thing to do, but also because many gay and lesbian people are discriminated against because they transgress gender norms too. Gender identity protections help not only transgender people, but gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and heterosexuals.
HRC needs to be accountable to the LGBT community for making choices that are damaging to all of us. The SF Pride Committee is to be commended for standing up for all of us and saying no. The over 350 organizations who formed a group called United ENDA continues to fight for an inclusive ENDA should also be commended. HRC, on the other hand, should not.
Making HRC, a very powerful and rich organization, accountable is not an easy task. In New York, a handful of activists recently decided to picket a dinner. These types of actions will only increase until HRC decides it represents the entire community.
Claire Bohman and Robert Haaland, Co-Chairs, Pride at Work
Rafael Mandelman, President, Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club
Tommi Avicolli Mecca, LGBT activist
Julius Turman, Co-Chair, Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club
Laura Spanjian, Board Member, Equality California
March 27th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I will gladly send in a vote for the pink brick to be chucked at HRC (as well as HRC and her husband).
I hope you might be interested in the opportunity to tell Jay Leno to “shove it” after being a lazy homophobe during his interview with Ryan Phillippe.
Check out this Jeff Whitty’s (playwrite)website for details:
http://www.whitless.com/
And then add your pic to this site: http://mygayestlook.com/
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Thanking I do good day