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Victory Fund’s Chuck Wolfe: ‘It’s time to go’
Tammy Baldwin’s Senate win a highlight of decade at helm of org
One month before his planned departure as CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, Chuck Wolfe’s mood is upbeat — even jovial.
Sitting in his personal office last week at the start of an interview with the Washington Blade, Wolfe cracked a joke as the Blade photo editor crouched in preparation for a shot.
“I just want to clear the record and make sure everyone knows,” Wolfe said, “you’re the only person in this office who’s ever been on their knees.”
His sense of humor was evident throughout the interview as he sometimes responded to questions with inquiries of his own, asking about this reporter’s newly grown beard, among other things. That attitude may well explain why Denis Dison, communications director for the Victory Fund, referred to him affectionately by the nickname “Chuckles” before the start of the interview.
After more than a decade as CEO of the Victory Fund — and its sister non-political education and training organization the Gay & Lesbian Victory Institute — there is ample reason for Wolfe’s good mood. During his tenure, the Victory Fund has endorsed 1,183 candidates at all levels of government across the United States, and 751 of those candidates have won.
As a result of the 2014 elections, at least one openly LGBT person is set to hold elected office in all 50 states. The Victory Institute-led President Appointments Project has helped at least 300 openly LGBT people land appointments within the Obama administration.
His biggest accomplishment? Tammy Baldwin’s win in 2012 as the first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate. His biggest disappointment? The loss of Jim Roth in 2008 to statewide office in Oklahoma as corporation commissioner.
Wolfe didn’t chalk up the successes of the Victory Fund to his own efforts, but rather to the changes in attitudes in the LGBT community and its greater engagement in politics.
“The biggest difference in 10 years is the complete change in understanding of LGBT participation in the political process,” Wolfe said. “Back in 2003, the big battle was to get people to come out of the closet. Now, it’s how to manage multiple LGBT candidates in a single race. That’s an unusual place to be and I think that’s the biggest change. That’s not all because of me being here, that’s not all because of Victory, but certainly that’s because there has been a lot of work done to change the perception of what public servants can do.”
Wolfe is set to depart the Victory Fund on Dec. 31. The board of directors is expected to announce his replacement in early 2015.
In his last election year as head of the organization in which the results were abysmal for Democrats, the Victory Fund suffered some disappointments. For starters, none of the non-incumbent congressional candidates the organization endorsed during this cycle — K. Marcus Brandon, Sean Eldridge, Dan Innis or Richard Tisei — were elected to the U.S. House.
Wolfe brushed off those losses as a small percentage of the races in which the Victory Fund is engaged, saying he doesn’t know why those races get the most attention, except perhaps because “we live in Washington.” He also noted the largest LGB delegation in history will return to Congress next year.
“We won 63 percent of our races this year,” Wolfe said. “So, even in a year like this, where it was not a particularly good year for progressive candidates, if you will, we had a good year. Not our best year ever, but certainly a good year.”
But one loss was particularly poignant. In Maine, Mike Michaud lost his race by a few percentage points to oust Tea Party Republican Paul LePage from the governor’s mansion, robbing the Democrat of the distinction of being the first openly gay person in the country elected as governor.
In the days prior to Election Day, Wolfe spent time in Maine assisting with campaign efforts, and spent the hours after polls closed with Michaud at a Portland event intended to be a victory celebration.
“It started out more celebratory, more hopeful, obviously it didn’t end up that way,” Wolfe said. “It was a victory party for all the high-profile Democratic candidates in Maine. So, they did a joint party. You had a congressional victory, and you had some other races that people were talking about, but then you had the governor’s race, which everyone was just waiting and waiting for. It took a long time that night.”
Calling the outcome of the race “disappointing,” Wolfe said he had no personal interaction with Michaud that night. Insisting Michaud presented “a deep contrast to the current incumbent,” Wolfe blamed the loss on the Republican wave that swept the country and the presence of independent candidate Eliot Cutler in the race.
“The math isn’t hard to calculate,” Wolfe said. “There was a much larger Republican turnout throughout the United States. That’s not news. And in this case, there was a third-party candidate in the race as well.”
In addition to the losses in some key races, the Victory Fund was criticized by progressives within the LGBT community for some of its endorsements.
Chief among those endorsements was Tisei, a Republican who was initially planning to run against Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) for his seat in Massachusetts’ 6th congressional district. After that lawmaker lost his primary, Tisei ended up running against, and losing to, Democrat Seth Moulton.
The concern over Tisei among progressives was based on his intended vote for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) as presiding officer of the U.S. House, whose majority control of the chamber obstructs pro-LGBT legislation.
Calling the criticism “situational and politically expedient comments,” Wolfe said the Victory Fund has no intention of changing its endorsement process to consider leadership votes of candidates. The race gained attention, Wolfe said, because “one former congressman said something about it” — presumably a reference to former Rep. Barney Frank, who endorsed Tierney — and others picked up on it.
“Our long view, which we’ve held now since 1991, is that putting LGBT people in positions of responsibility ensures that eventually we change policies and laws for our community,” Wolfe said. “In that same period since 1991, people have voted for presidents, House speakers, Senate presidents who have not been supportive of LGBT rights — and if in that same time period we had stopped endorsing our candidates because they supported any of those people, where would those people be today?”
Another criticism of the Victory Fund endorsement process: It’s too difficult for well-qualifed openly LGBT candidates to win support if their chances of winning are small, especially in areas where LGBT representation is needed in the South and Midwest.
That view was expressed last month by lesbian journalist Kerry Eleveld in an article for The Advocate titled, “Where LGBT Candidates Need the Most Help, Get the Least,” which used the unsuccessful Democratic primary bid of gay Michigan congressional hopeful Trevor Thomas in 2012 as an example of a candidacy that would have benefited from Victory Fund support.
Wolfe dismissed those concerns, saying the win rate of Victory Fund-endorsed candidates demonstrates no need for change, although he insisted his organization doesn’t “ever wish ill on any LGBT candidate.”
“If you look at data of the candidates who don’t get endorsed, they don’t win,” Wolfe said. “The candidates who get endorsed win, and there’s a dramatic difference. There’s a long-standing tradition that the board vets the candidates thoroughly, decides who to endorse in a thoughtful, reflective, meaningful way. We don’t get it right every time; only 63 percent of our candidates won in a very rough year this year. And as many as 74 percent of candidates have won in our best year.”
Looking to the future, Wolfe was relatively tight-lipped. He wouldn’t say anything about what he thinks the Victory Fund’s priority races will be in the next cycle, nor would he offer his successor any advice.
But he did venture a guess for when the LGBT community would achieve a certain milestone: the election of an openly transgender candidate to a state legislature. In New Hampshire, Stacie Laughton won election as a state legislator in 2012, but wasn’t seated because of her record as a felon.
Wolfe said the election of a transgender person to a state legislature would happen “in the next six years” and would likely precede the election of a transgender person to Congress.
“It will be as important as Tammy Baldwin’s election in 1998,” Wolfe said. “Tammy was the first out person elected without having to come out in office to Congress, and I think it’ll be as important as that.”
An even bigger ambition: A Victory Fund-endorsed presidential candidate. Fred Karger ran as an openly gay Republican presidential candidate in 2012, but was deemed a long shot and didn’t receive the organization’s endorsement.
“I’d say within the next five presidential cycles, which is the next 20 years, you’ll see a qualified LGBT candidate for the White House,” Wolfe said. “Now whether they’ll end up in the primaries or whether they’ll be a nominee for president, I don’t know. But I think you’ll see a qualified ready and running candidate for the White House.”
As for his own future plans, Wolfe said he intends to decompress and take a vacation in the first quarter to visit family in Florida, go horseback riding and sit on the beach.
Wolfe, who announced to his board in September he would depart as head of Victory Fund, spoke publicly earlier this year about suffering a heart attack and acknowledged that “absolutely” played a role in his decision to leave.
“It was at the back of my mind,” Wolfe said. “And then, Labor Day weekend, I had my sister drop off my nieces with me and I took care of my nieces, sitting there playing with them. This was in Rehoboth. And I just knew, that’s when it clicked. Why are you battling this in your head? It’s time to go.”
Behind him in his office is a white cowboy hat given to him in Texas by a Harris County sheriff. It’s not the hat he’ll wear when horseback riding, but it looks good on him and adds to his cheerful demeanor.
“I will offer my successor anything they want, if they want it, but I will certainly not give them any advice,” Wolfe said. “It’ll be their role, and they’ve inherited a really special place. It’s a place that operates with a crystal clear vision of the future and a definitive mission that people understand and get. Sometimes people want to create drama, but rarely. And it’ll be their ship to steer for a while.”
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Honoring the legacy of New Orleans’ 1973 UpStairs Lounge fire
Why the arson attack that killed 32 gay men still resonates 50 years later
On June 23 of last year, I held the microphone as a gay man in the New Orleans City Council Chamber and related a lost piece of queer history to the seven council members. I told this story to disabuse all New Orleanians of the notion that silence and accommodation, in the face of institutional and official failures, are a path to healing.
The story I related to them began on a typical Sunday night at a second-story bar on the fringe of New Orleans’ French Quarter in 1973, where working-class men would gather around a white baby grand piano and belt out the lyrics to a song that was the anthem of their hidden community, “United We Stand” by the Brotherhood of Man.
“United we stand,” the men would sing together, “divided we fall” — the words epitomizing the ethos of their beloved UpStairs Lounge bar, an egalitarian free space that served as a forerunner to today’s queer safe havens.
Around that piano in the 1970s Deep South, gays and lesbians, white and Black queens, Christians and non-Christians, and even early gender minorities could cast aside the racism, sexism, and homophobia of the times to find acceptance and companionship for a moment.
For regulars, the UpStairs Lounge was a miracle, a small pocket of acceptance in a broader world where their very identities were illegal.
On the Sunday night of June 24, 1973, their voices were silenced in a murderous act of arson that claimed 32 lives and still stands as the deadliest fire in New Orleans history — and the worst mass killing of gays in 20th century America.
As 13 fire companies struggled to douse the inferno, police refused to question the chief suspect, even though gay witnesses identified and brought the soot-covered man to officers idly standing by. This suspect, an internally conflicted gay-for-pay sex worker named Rodger Dale Nunez, had been ejected from the UpStairs Lounge screaming the word “burn” minutes before, but New Orleans police rebuffed the testimony of fire survivors on the street and allowed Nunez to disappear.
As the fire raged, police denigrated the deceased to reporters on the street: “Some thieves hung out there, and you know this was a queer bar.”
For days afterward, the carnage met with official silence. With no local gay political leaders willing to step forward, national Gay Liberation-era figures like Rev. Troy Perry of the Metropolitan Community Church flew in to “help our bereaved brothers and sisters” — and shatter officialdom’s code of silence.
Perry broke local taboos by holding a press conference as an openly gay man. “It’s high time that you people, in New Orleans, Louisiana, got the message and joined the rest of the Union,” Perry said.
Two days later, on June 26, 1973, as families hesitated to step forward to identify their kin in the morgue, UpStairs Lounge owner Phil Esteve stood in his badly charred bar, the air still foul with death. He rebuffed attempts by Perry to turn the fire into a call for visibility and progress for homosexuals.
“This fire had very little to do with the gay movement or with anything gay,” Esteve told a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer. “I do not want my bar or this tragedy to be used to further any of their causes.”
Conspicuously, no photos of Esteve appeared in coverage of the UpStairs Lounge fire or its aftermath — and the bar owner also remained silent as he witnessed police looting the ashes of his business.
“Phil said the cash register, juke box, cigarette machine and some wallets had money removed,” recounted Esteve’s friend Bob McAnear, a former U.S. Customs officer. “Phil wouldn’t report it because, if he did, police would never allow him to operate a bar in New Orleans again.”
The next day, gay bar owners, incensed at declining gay bar traffic amid an atmosphere of anxiety, confronted Perry at a clandestine meeting. “How dare you hold your damn news conferences!” one business owner shouted.
Ignoring calls for gay self-censorship, Perry held a 250-person memorial for the fire victims the following Sunday, July 1, culminating in mourners defiantly marching out the front door of a French Quarter church into waiting news cameras. “Reverend Troy Perry awoke several sleeping giants, me being one of them,” recalled Charlene Schneider, a lesbian activist who walked out of that front door with Perry.
Esteve doubted the UpStairs Lounge story’s capacity to rouse gay political fervor. As the coroner buried four of his former patrons anonymously on the edge of town, Esteve quietly collected at least $25,000 in fire insurance proceeds. Less than a year later, he used the money to open another gay bar called the Post Office, where patrons of the UpStairs Lounge — some with visible burn scars — gathered but were discouraged from singing “United We Stand.”
New Orleans cops neglected to question the chief arson suspect and closed the investigation without answers in late August 1973. Gay elites in the city’s power structure began gaslighting the mourners who marched with Perry into the news cameras, casting suspicion on their memories and re-characterizing their moment of liberation as a stunt.
When a local gay journalist asked in April 1977, “Where are the gay activists in New Orleans?,” Esteve responded that there were none, because none were needed. “We don’t feel we’re discriminated against,” Esteve said. “New Orleans gays are different from gays anywhere else… Perhaps there is some correlation between the amount of gay activism in other cities and the degree of police harassment.”
An attitude of nihilism and disavowal descended upon the memory of the UpStairs Lounge victims, goaded by Esteve and fellow gay entrepreneurs who earned their keep via gay patrons drowning their sorrows each night instead of protesting the injustices that kept them drinking.
Into the 1980s, the story of the UpStairs Lounge all but vanished from conversation — with the exception of a few sanctuaries for gay political debate such as the local lesbian bar Charlene’s, run by the activist Charlene Schneider.
By 1988, the 15th anniversary of the fire, the UpStairs Lounge narrative comprised little more than a call for better fire codes and indoor sprinklers. UpStairs Lounge survivor Stewart Butler summed it up: “A tragedy that, as far as I know, no good came of.”
Finally, in 1991, at Stewart Butler and Charlene Schneider’s nudging, the UpStairs Lounge story became aligned with the crusade of liberated gays and lesbians seeking equal rights in Louisiana. The halls of power responded with intermittent progress. The New Orleans City Council, horrified by the story but not yet ready to take its look in the mirror, enacted an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting gays and lesbians in housing, employment, and public accommodations that Dec. 12 — more than 18 years after the fire.
“I believe the fire was the catalyst for the anger to bring us all to the table,” Schneider told The Times-Picayune, a tacit rebuke to Esteve’s strategy of silent accommodation. Even Esteve seemed to change his stance with time, granting a full interview with the first UpStairs Lounge scholar Johnny Townsend sometime around 1989.
Most of the figures in this historic tale are now deceased. What’s left is an enduring story that refused to go gently. The story now echoes around the world — a musical about the UpStairs Lounge fire recently played in Tokyo, translating the gay underworld of the 1973 French Quarter for Japanese audiences.
When I finished my presentation to the City Council last June, I looked up to see the seven council members in tears. Unanimously, they approved a resolution acknowledging the historic failures of city leaders in the wake of the UpStairs Lounge fire.
Council members personally apologized to UpStairs Lounge families and survivors seated in the chamber in a symbolic act that, though it could not bring back those who died, still mattered greatly to those whose pain had been denied, leaving them to grieve alone. At long last, official silence and indifference gave way to heartfelt words of healing.
The way Americans remember the past is an active, ongoing process. Our collective memory is malleable, but it matters because it speaks volumes about our maturity as a people, how we acknowledge the past’s influence in our lives, and how it shapes the examples we set for our youth. Do we grapple with difficult truths, or do we duck accountability by defaulting to nostalgia and bluster? Or worse, do we simply ignore the past until it fades into a black hole of ignorance and indifference?
I believe that a factual retelling of the UpStairs Lounge tragedy — and how, 50 years onward, it became known internationally — resonates beyond our current divides. It reminds queer and non-queer Americans that ignoring the past holds back the present, and that silence is no cure for what ails a participatory nation.
Silence isolates. Silence gaslights and shrouds. It preserves the power structures that scapegoat the disempowered.
Solidarity, on the other hand, unites. Solidarity illuminates a path forward together. Above all, solidarity transforms the downtrodden into a resounding chorus of citizens — in the spirit of voices who once gathered ‘round a white baby grand piano and sang, joyfully and loudly, “United We Stand.”
Robert W. Fieseler is a New Orleans-based journalist and the author of “Tinderbox: the Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.”
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New Supreme Court term includes critical LGBTQ case with ‘terrifying’ consequences
Business owner seeks to decline services for same-sex weddings
The U.S. Supreme Court, after a decision overturning Roe v. Wade that still leaves many reeling, is starting a new term with justices slated to revisit the issue of LGBTQ rights.
In 303 Creative v. Elenis, the court will return to the issue of whether or not providers of custom-made goods can refuse service to LGBTQ customers on First Amendment grounds. In this case, the business owner is Lorie Smith, a website designer in Colorado who wants to opt out of providing her graphic design services for same-sex weddings despite the civil rights law in her state.
Jennifer Pizer, acting chief legal officer of Lambda Legal, said in an interview with the Blade, “it’s not too much to say an immeasurably huge amount is at stake” for LGBTQ people depending on the outcome of the case.
“This contrived idea that making custom goods, or offering a custom service, somehow tacitly conveys an endorsement of the person — if that were to be accepted, that would be a profound change in the law,” Pizer said. “And the stakes are very high because there are no practical, obvious, principled ways to limit that kind of an exception, and if the law isn’t clear in this regard, then the people who are at risk of experiencing discrimination have no security, no effective protection by having a non-discrimination laws, because at any moment, as one makes their way through the commercial marketplace, you don’t know whether a particular business person is going to refuse to serve you.”
The upcoming arguments and decision in the 303 Creative case mark a return to LGBTQ rights for the Supreme Court, which had no lawsuit to directly address the issue in its previous term, although many argued the Dobbs decision put LGBTQ rights in peril and threatened access to abortion for LGBTQ people.
And yet, the 303 Creative case is similar to other cases the Supreme Court has previously heard on the providers of services seeking the right to deny services based on First Amendment grounds, such as Masterpiece Cakeshop and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. In both of those cases, however, the court issued narrow rulings on the facts of litigation, declining to issue sweeping rulings either upholding non-discrimination principles or First Amendment exemptions.
Pizer, who signed one of the friend-of-the-court briefs in opposition to 303 Creative, said the case is “similar in the goals” of the Masterpiece Cakeshop litigation on the basis they both seek exemptions to the same non-discrimination law that governs their business, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, or CADA, and seek “to further the social and political argument that they should be free to refuse same-sex couples or LGBTQ people in particular.”
“So there’s the legal goal, and it connects to the social and political goals and in that sense, it’s the same as Masterpiece,” Pizer said. “And so there are multiple problems with it again, as a legal matter, but also as a social matter, because as with the religion argument, it flows from the idea that having something to do with us is endorsing us.”
One difference: the Masterpiece Cakeshop litigation stemmed from an act of refusal of service after owner, Jack Phillips, declined to make a custom-made wedding cake for a same-sex couple for their upcoming wedding. No act of discrimination in the past, however, is present in the 303 Creative case. The owner seeks to put on her website a disclaimer she won’t provide services for same-sex weddings, signaling an intent to discriminate against same-sex couples rather than having done so.
As such, expect issues of standing — whether or not either party is personally aggrieved and able bring to a lawsuit — to be hashed out in arguments as well as whether the litigation is ripe for review as justices consider the case. It’s not hard to see U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, who has sought to lead the court to reach less sweeping decisions (sometimes successfully, and sometimes in the Dobbs case not successfully) to push for a decision along these lines.
Another key difference: The 303 Creative case hinges on the argument of freedom of speech as opposed to the two-fold argument of freedom of speech and freedom of religious exercise in the Masterpiece Cakeshop litigation. Although 303 Creative requested in its petition to the Supreme Court review of both issues of speech and religion, justices elected only to take up the issue of free speech in granting a writ of certiorari (or agreement to take up a case). Justices also declined to accept another question in the petition request of review of the 1990 precedent in Smith v. Employment Division, which concluded states can enforce neutral generally applicable laws on citizens with religious objections without violating the First Amendment.
Representing 303 Creative in the lawsuit is Alliance Defending Freedom, a law firm that has sought to undermine civil rights laws for LGBTQ people with litigation seeking exemptions based on the First Amendment, such as the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.
Kristen Waggoner, president of Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote in a Sept. 12 legal brief signed by her and other attorneys that a decision in favor of 303 Creative boils down to a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment.
“Colorado and the United States still contend that CADA only regulates sales transactions,” the brief says. “But their cases do not apply because they involve non-expressive activities: selling BBQ, firing employees, restricting school attendance, limiting club memberships, and providing room access. Colorado’s own cases agree that the government may not use public-accommodation laws to affect a commercial actor’s speech.”
Pizer, however, pushed back strongly on the idea a decision in favor of 303 Creative would be as focused as Alliance Defending Freedom purports it would be, arguing it could open the door to widespread discrimination against LGBTQ people.
“One way to put it is art tends to be in the eye of the beholder,” Pizer said. “Is something of a craft, or is it art? I feel like I’m channeling Lily Tomlin. Remember ‘soup and art’? We have had an understanding that whether something is beautiful or not is not the determining factor about whether something is protected as artistic expression. There’s a legal test that recognizes if this is speech, whose speech is it, whose message is it? Would anyone who was hearing the speech or seeing the message understand it to be the message of the customer or of the merchants or craftsmen or business person?”
Despite the implications in the case for LGBTQ rights, 303 Creative may have supporters among LGBTQ people who consider themselves proponents of free speech.
One joint friend-of-the-court brief before the Supreme Court, written by Dale Carpenter, a law professor at Southern Methodist University who’s written in favor of LGBTQ rights, and Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment legal scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, argues the case is an opportunity to affirm the First Amendment applies to goods and services that are uniquely expressive.
“Distinguishing expressive from non-expressive products in some contexts might be hard, but the Tenth Circuit agreed that Smith’s product does not present a hard case,” the brief says. “Yet that court (and Colorado) declined to recognize any exemption for products constituting speech. The Tenth Circuit has effectively recognized a state interest in subjecting the creation of speech itself to antidiscrimination laws.”
Oral arguments in the case aren’t yet set, but may be announced soon. Set to defend the state of Colorado and enforcement of its non-discrimination law in the case is Colorado Solicitor General Eric Reuel Olson. Just this week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would grant the request to the U.S. solicitor general to present arguments before the justices on behalf of the Biden administration.
With a 6-3 conservative majority on the court that has recently scrapped the super-precedent guaranteeing the right to abortion, supporters of LGBTQ rights may think the outcome of the case is all but lost, especially amid widespread fears same-sex marriage would be next on the chopping block. After the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against 303 Creative in the lawsuit, the simple action by the Supreme Court to grant review in the lawsuit suggests they are primed to issue a reversal and rule in favor of the company.
Pizer, acknowledging the call to action issued by LGBTQ groups in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, conceded the current Supreme Court issuing the ruling in this case is “a terrifying prospect,” but cautioned the issue isn’t so much the makeup of the court but whether or not justices will continue down the path of abolishing case law.
“I think the question that we’re facing with respect to all of the cases or at least many of the cases that are in front of the court right now, is whether this court is going to continue on this radical sort of wrecking ball to the edifice of settled law and seemingly a goal of setting up whole new structures of what our basic legal principles are going to be. Are we going to have another term of that?” Pizer said. “And if so, that’s terrifying.”
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Kelley Robinson, a Black, queer woman, named president of Human Rights Campaign
Progressive activist a veteran of Planned Parenthood Action Fund
Kelley Robinson, a Black, queer woman and veteran of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, is to become the next president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s leading LGBTQ group announced on Tuesday.
Robinson is set to become the ninth president of the Human Rights Campaign after having served as executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund and more than 12 years of experience as a leader in the progressive movement. She’ll be the first Black, queer woman to serve in that role.
“I’m honored and ready to lead HRC — and our more than three million member-advocates — as we continue working to achieve equality and liberation for all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer people,” Robinson said. “This is a pivotal moment in our movement for equality for LGBTQ+ people. We, particularly our trans and BIPOC communities, are quite literally in the fight for our lives and facing unprecedented threats that seek to destroy us.”
The next Human Rights Campaign president is named as Democrats are performing well in polls in the mid-term elections after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving an opening for the LGBTQ group to play a key role amid fears LGBTQ rights are next on the chopping block.
“The overturning of Roe v. Wade reminds us we are just one Supreme Court decision away from losing fundamental freedoms including the freedom to marry, voting rights, and privacy,” Robinson said. “We are facing a generational opportunity to rise to these challenges and create real, sustainable change. I believe that working together this change is possible right now. This next chapter of the Human Rights Campaign is about getting to freedom and liberation without any exceptions — and today I am making a promise and commitment to carry this work forward.”
The Human Rights Campaign announces its next president after a nearly year-long search process after the board of directors terminated its former president Alphonso David when he was ensnared in the sexual misconduct scandal that led former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign. David has denied wrongdoing and filed a lawsuit against the LGBTQ group alleging racial discrimination.
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