Robert Turner, executive director of the D.C. Republican Party and former president of the D.C. chapter of Log Cabin Republicans, has it right about prominent LGBT organizations in his Washington Blade op-ed:
When you listen to some national gay organizations, they speak of the evils of Republicans. They often imply ALL Republicans. Either they are not mindful that we have a growing number of Republican allies in the House and Senate and around the country who support us on many of our core issues, or they are simply party hacks. It’s OK to be a party hack. I am. Just don’t masquerade as a non-partisan national LGBT organization if that’s what you really are — an operative of the Democratic Party.
It might be better if the Human Rights Campaign identified itself for what it’s become, a fundraising arm of the Democratic Party, rather than pretending to speak for all gay people when it lobbies for gay rights and supports progressive causes.
15 Comments for “Not Non-Partisan”
posted by Houndentenor on
Names please? Yes there are some pro-gay Republicans. Why aren’t you touting them on your own blog? As it stands the GOP is anti-gay. It’s in the platform and in the talking points. We probably have enough Republican votes to pass ENDA in the house if Boehner would let it come up for a vote. What that means to me is that voting for a Republican in the House is a vote against ENDA even if that particular Congressman would vote for it, because they are going to vote for an anti-gay Speaker and they’ll never get a chance to vote on any pro-gay bill at all. That’s the problem for the GOP. So do something about it! You’re a Republican. If you can’t effect change in the GOP why do you think the HRC can? Of course gay rights groups are more friendly to Democrats. How could they not be? Has there been a single race in which the Republican was more friendly to gays than the Democrat? (Surely there’s been one. Take up the challenge and find a single example!) I remember in 1996 when the Dole campaign solicited a donation from LCR and then returned it, making sure they got press coverage for doing so. They wouldn’t even take our money. Have things changed much inside the GOP? Or 2004 when one of the main issues in the election was a proposed anti-gay marriage Constitutional amendment. (Granted, Kerry was a mess on gay issues that year as well, but at least he wasn’t proposing enshrining bigotry in the Constitution).
Moreover we have not one but two conservative gay rights groups. (Well, one really since I never saw anything pro-gay come out of GOProud but LCR did a good job in its lawsuit against DADT.) Why aren’t they doing the work you expect from HRC? Why can’t they raise as much money. (One assumes gay conservatives are better off financially than gay liberals.) You can complain that no one is doing anything, or you can go out and do it yourself. The first method doesn’t seem to be getting you anywhere. Although I guess that would defeat the whole raison d’etre of gay conservatives which seems to be hating on all things liberal in lieu of advancing equal rights for gay people. What’s that about anyway?
posted by Sonicfrog on
Hound…. The problem is that there are plenty of considerably non-anti-gay-rights Republicans out there, but if you show that POV as a candidate, you’ll not find much support if you plan on staying in ofice. And since every politician that gets elected to office is now a candidate for the next election and running for office as soon as he or she is sworn in…
It’s not much different than it was for pro-same-sex marriage Democrats a few years ago. There were many who privately supported the concept, but could never go on record publically in fear that this confirmaton would result in an inability to get elected or re-elected. Remeber, Obama was for gay marriage before he was against it before he was for it!
More tolerant Republicans have a very difficult time right now because the most powerful groups inside and outside of the party – talk radio for the latter – are unwaivering “True Conservatives” / non-RINO’S who will absolutely not tolerate any waivering from the evangelical path they dictate everyone that calls themselves Conservative to follow.
So yeah, it ain’t easy to find Republicans who are on record as having strong pro-equality views… But they are out there.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
HRC publishes its criteria for endorsement/support:
The criteria, if you think about them, are party-neutral, but HRC’s endorsements run to Democrats. No question about it. Why? Here’s a thought: I urge you to look over the HRC endorsements from 2012 and find an endorsement on that list in which the HRC-endorsed candidate did not meet HRC’s endorsement criteria, or in which the candidate not endorsed had a record that fit HRC’s endorsement criteria better than the candidate who was endorsed.
I admit the possibility, but of the couple dozen races with which I’m familiar, I can find none. Not one.
But all of that is irrelevant.
The task ahead is to turn the Republican Party, and (as Robert Turner pointed out in his article) to stem the outflow of gays and lesbians like Jimmy LaSalvia and Andy Markle from the party.
That task will take work within the Republican Party, by Republicans.
HRC didn’t do that work in the Democratic Party (Democratic Party gays and lesbians, along with pro-equality allies, did that work) and HRC won’t do that work in the Republican Party, either. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be expected to.
I’m proud of the work we did in the Democratic Party. We worked long and hard, for the better part of three decades, to bring the Democratic Party to “equal means equal”. We still have a lot to do, but we are far ahead of where we were a decade ago, when you correctly pointed out that Democratic politicians were gun shy about support for “equal means equal”. We got where we are because we earned it.
Go and do likewise, Stephen.
posted by Mike in Houston on
The allegation that HRC is an operative of the Democratic party is laughable… true, HRC (at least in the past) can be said to be beholden to DC-insider machinations, but how exactly do you do “outreach” to a party that barely (if at all) tolerates the LCR?
I mean, we’re back to Ken Mehlman and his LGBT-ally nightingales — something of a rareity and often marginalized or driven from the party by the tea-vangelical puritans.
Moreover, take a look at the donors list (Federal Club, etc.) and the Boards of Directors for the HRC and you’ll find quite a few folks of the GOP-persuasion. Yes, there’s plenty of overlap with Democratic partisan organizations, but my political contributions flow to those that match my “equal means equal” values.
posted by Doug on
Instead of whining about the political left not labeling itself to your standards why don’t you and other gay Republicans roll up your sleeves, get down in the trenches and work as hard as gay Democrats have done to change the party? Are gay Republicans afraid to get their hands dirty and work for change or maybe you would rather just whine and accomplish nothing.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
It might be better if the Human Rights Campaign identified itself for what it’s become, a fundraising arm of the Democratic Party, rather than pretending to speak for all gay people when it lobbies for gay rights and supports progressive causes.
HRC clearly doesn’t “speak for all gay people”, nor does it claim to do so. It has an agenda and it pursues that agenda.
HRC is an organization with strengths and weaknesses. It is effective in some respects, ineffective in others. It has an agenda (which you dismiss as “progressive”) but it is upfront about its agenda. What’s wrong with that?
By and large, Democratic politicians have bought into the HRC agenda, at least in part, pressured by gays and lesbians within the party. By and large, Republican politicians have not. What’s wrong with that?
HRC’s agenda clearly conflicts with the agenda of many libertarian gays and lesbians (e.g. on ENDA, hate crimes, and so on), and doesn’t address many of the agenda items (e.g. removing firearms regulation, social security privatization) that GOProud considers priorities. What’s wrong with that?
I don’t understand the problem. I don’t see any reason why all gays and lesbians should march in lockstep or speak with a single voice. After all, we are just as diverse in our political views as straights. Can’t our LGBT organizations reflect our difference approaches?
I think that a trying to create a one-size-fits-all LGBT advocacy group is a bad idea. If we limit the LGBT agenda to things everyone agrees on, we won’t have much of an agenda. We might have an agenda with nothing on it at all.
posted by Mike in Houston on
I would like some substantiation of the allegation that HRC has become “a fundraising arm of the Democratic Party”.
True, they do independent fund-raising for their endorsed candidates, but to say that because of that they are nothing more than a shell PAC for the Democratic Party is more than a stretch — it’s a lie. (oft repeated here and on America’s Dumbest Homosexual’s blog – “Gay Patriot”, but a lie nonetheless)
Even a cursory review of HRC’s financial reports show that campaign contributions are an astonishingly small part of the overall budget for this organization.
Quibble with what they do spend the money that they raise on — but don’t accuse HRC of being something that it’s not.
posted by Don on
It’s just time for the monthly rant that HRC only likes Democrats. Nothing to see here. Certainly nothing new.
posted by Houndentenor on
I’ve been putting out the challenge for a gay conservative to come up with a single race in which the Republican had a better record on gay rights than the Democrat. So far no one has taken me up on that challenge. I find it hard to believe that has never happened. Perhaps some state senate race in Massachusetts?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I think that it is important to remember that there are two different versions of what constitutes a “better record on gay rights”.
Progressive and left/liberal gays and lesbians tend to give priority to legal equality — marriage equality, fair employment practices, non-discrimination policies, and hate crimes laws and similar.
Conservative gays and lesbians (e.g. GOProud) tend to give priority to economic equality — privatization of social security, elimination of estate/inheritance taxes, elimination of differential rates for single/joint income taxes, and so on.
That’s why HRC endorsed Tammy Baldwin in 2012, despite her opposition to economic equality of the kind given priority by GOProud, and GOProud endorsed Tommy Thompson despite his abysmal positions/record on marriage equality, fair employment practices, non-discrimination policies, and hate crimes laws and similar.
As Jorge has pointed out several times in the last couple of weeks, to the mind of conservative gays and lesbians, it is entirely possible to be “pro-gay” but oppose marriage equality, fair employment practices, non-discrimination policies, and hate crimes laws and similar. It is simply a matter of definition.
The definitional issue is at the heart of the battle over approach to gay and lesbian issues since the 2013 autopsy. Chairman Priebus and Republicans of like mind believe that gays and lesbians will “come to Jesus” (or the Republican candidates, anyway) — that is, the positions espoused by the 2012 Republican platform — if Republicans would just stop the trash talk about gays and lesbians. Chairman Priebus and Republicans of like mind sincerely believe that the positions espoused by the 2012 Republican platform are the “better” positions for gays and lesbians.
I suspect that is why Stephen and other Republican gays and lesbians are so down on HRC. To the conservative mind, HRC’s “progressive agenda” blinds gays and lesbians to the real issues facing gays and lesbians.
posted by Jorge on
What about some US Senate race in Massachusetts? Didn’t Mitt Romney once allege he would be better on gay rights than Ted Kennedy? Couldn’t he come up with any binders full of gays?
The definitional issue is at the heart of the battle over approach to gay and lesbian issues since the 2013 autopsy.
A little generous of you to posit that the cordiality of Chairman Prebus and Speaker Boehner will prevail decisively enough in the party for there to be such a battle line.
I suspect that is why Stephen and other Republican gays and lesbians are so down on HRC. To the conservative mind, HRC’s “progressive agenda” blinds gays and lesbians to the real issues facing gays and lesbians.
While I would point the finger more at the marriage agenda and the focus on public policy over social change and public safety, I definitely have that feeling.
*Shrug*
Hard to argue with all the celebrating, though.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
A little generous of you to posit that the cordiality of Chairman Prebus and Speaker Boehner will prevail decisively enough in the party for there to be such a battle line.
A “little generous” or not, social conservatives are fighting tooth and nail to preserve their domination over Republican Party primaries, and it would behoove pro-equality conservatives to do likewise.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
It seems to me that the higher up you go (i.e local-state – federal), the harder it is for a prospective Republican — gay, straight or bisexual — to support gay rights and be seen as a viable candidate.
I have certainly known — even dated a few — gay Republicans as a University student. Everyone that has expressed an interest in running (down the road) for partisan public office has told me that the party leadership said “no”, unless they remained in the closet or
oppose gay rights.
At least in the Midwest, catering to the ‘religious right’ is still generally a requirement for serious GOP candidates. This means saying that being gay is a ‘choice’, opposing ‘special rights’ for gays and so on and so forth.
posted by Jorge on
“Beyond a shared basic rights agenda, there is no political unity between progressives and conservatives in the LGBT community.”
Woo hoo for shared basic rights agenda. Especially the delicate construction of such an expression. Unity!
The quote this blog post highlights is weak because (unlike the post’s author!) it fails to give examples or name names.
When you read to some dissenting gay voices, they speak of the evils of national gay organizations. They often imply ALL national gay organizations. Do I do something similar? Yes I do!
We simply can’t throw a temper tantrum and leave an organization or a political party when we don’t get our way. That’s what they want.
grrrrrrr!!!
As someone who has left the Republican party, I’ll do what I please, when I please, for my own reasons, without regard for what impression it gives other people about whatever qualities I have that they have taken no interest in cultivating, so take your punishment and like it. My concern with what I do and decide is not what people think about me, but about the impact it has on this world and on my “basic rights agenda”. Results judge. Talking heads do not. The price of action and judgment is failure; I shall pay no other.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Oddly enough, folks that complain about the HRC not being non-partisan often do not really seem to come up with many viable alternatives or solutions.
If money — for example — was set aside to help train federal pro-equality, Republican candidates (straight or LGBT) how many
of such candidates should realistically be found?
During the debate over gender identity inclusion in ENDA I made the suggestion that maybe — if the full inclusion had to be put aside for the moment to make baby steps — money should be set aside to train more transgender people to run for federal office.
Yet, how many transgender people would be willing to run and could be made into — more or less — serious candidates.
I know some gay Republicans and straight ‘South Park’-type Republicans who support equality, but few would actually want to run for federal office and those that have often got quite a bit negative feedback from their local GOP.
OK, so what about creating some sort of new national interest group that was more — as defined by some — ‘non-partisan’? Well, not too many people want to do that (even through they may complain about the HRC)