Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Making fun of the HRC
I try to keep any mocking of the Human Rights Campaign to a minimum. Not because I’m a fan (they sure do have a whole lot of parties), but mainly because it’s a crowded market. There is no dearth of people taking shots, well deserved, at the HRC and its penchant for fund raising over serious political work.
While this story is dated by two days hopefully it will cause you to pause a bit if you are thinking of sending the organization a late in the year donation. Last week, the organization sent a note to President-elect Barack Obama suggesting he choose Linda Sanchez as labor secretary.
Good choice really. She represents the 39th Congressional district in California, serves on the House Committee on Education and Labor and is a co-founder of the Labor and Working Families Caucus.
According to HRC, Obama couldn’t find a better person to head the Labor Department, until they suddenly heard of someone named Mary Beth Maxwell.
“While we remain supportive of Representative Sánchez’s candidacy, it has come to our attention that Mary Beth Maxwell is also being considered for this crucial position,” HRC president Joe Solmonese wrote to the president elect. “Given Ms. Maxwell’s long history of leadership on labor issues, HRC is pleased to also endorse Mary Beth Maxwell for Secretary of Labor.”
Mmmmmm. Aside from the group’s schizophrenia, a more troubling question is this. Why wasn’t a gay rights organization pushing for Maxwell in the first place? Her credentials are progressive/liberal perfect, she has the respect of people in the labor field, and she’s a lesbian raising a kid. Was she too gay?
Nobody mentioned religious outreach. All good reasons to drop support, but for me the biggest was when they launched the ill-advised religious outreach effort, which basically purports to teach bigots “how to pray and NOT HATE gays so much.”
Sorry, but religion is evil, in all of its manifestations ALL OF THEM. I can’t give any money to an organization that uses it to say religion is ok, it just needs to be educated.
The only education religion needs is simply reason and humanity. If “they” employed their brains, there would be no religion, because its premise is false.
By the way, in case people haven’t figured it out, HRC is not a gay organization. It is a fundraiser for the DNC set up to raise funds FROM gay people.
The abortion issue discussed in this thread proves that out. I’m pro choice (there is no pro-life by the way, that is a made up term, it means nothing. You either support a woman’s right to choose or you are against it. Both positions have positive and negative life impace, so “pro-life” or “anti-life” are in fact meaningless)…..but I certainly don’t want my gay dollars having anything to do with that argument. It clearly was needed to fit into the DNCs goals.