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Gay Republican in heated race for D.C. GOP chair post
Log Cabin neutral, gay committee members divided
Gay members of the D.C. Republican Committee reportedly were divided over whether to vote for incumbent Chair Ron Phillips or challenger Jose Cunningham, a local gay Republican activist, in a hotly contested election for the chairman post scheduled for Thursday night.
The vote by the DCRCās approximately 175 members was set to take place Jan. 8 at the Capitol Hill Club, which is located next to the Republican National Committee headquarters and less than two blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
The DCRC serves as the governing body of the D.C. Republican Party.
In a development that party observers say sets the D.C. Republican Party apart from state Republican Party committees across the country, both Phillips and Cunningham say the D.C. partyās support for LGBT rights, including marriage equality, is a settled matter.
In interviews with the Washington Blade, both have said they are running on other issues, especially the question of how the D.C. Republican Party can expand its membership and recruit qualified candidates for public office in a city with an overwhelmingly Democratic electorate.
āThe total number of D.C. registered Republicans over the last couple of years has gone down by something like 3,000 ā from 33,000 to about 30,000, and thatās unacceptable,ā said Cunningham, who works as chief marketing and business development officer at the international law firm Crowell & Moring.
Cunningham notes that the registration decline took place during Phillipsā two-year tenure as chairman.
āI think that one of the reasons that weāve almost become irrelevant is that we donāt have a steady stream of advocacy and opinion out there,ā Cunningham said. āAnd as the voice of opposition in Washington, D.C., we should be talking about housing and the economy and corruption and the budget and those kinds of things. And we just havenāt been doing that for the last couple of years.ā
Cunningham cites his record as a longtime fundraiser for the local and national Republican committees and his experience in marketing and business development as assets that will help him expand the DCRCās ability become competitive in city elections.
Although Cunningham and an eight-point platform he released on ways to strengthen the local party doesnāt mention LGBT issues, some of his supporters ā most of whom asked not to be identified ā have attacked Phillips for being associated in the past with national Republican figures who oppose LGBT rights, including marriage equality.
One critic notes that Phillips worked in the past for U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who strongly opposed repealing the āDonāt Ask, Donāt Tellā law prohibiting gays from serving openly in the military. Congress repealed the law in 2011. Other critics note that Phillips appointed as his Ward 2 chair on the DCRC outspoken same-sex marriage opponent Travis Korson, whoās affiliated with groups linked to anti-gay advocates Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed.
Phillips calls the attacks by anonymous critics a āsmear campaignā orchestrated by Cunningham supporters that he says totally distorts his views and positions on LGBT issues.
Calling himself a ābig tent Republican,ā Phillips said he has long called for the Republican Party to be open to the diverse political views of its members, including gays.
āI view everybody as equal and I believe in equality,ā he said. āAnd as a straight man, I have the greatest respect for my executive director, whoās gay,ā he said, referring to Robert Turner, former president of the D.C. gay political group Log Cabin Republicans.
āAnd the first decision I made when I got into D.C. Republican politics was to make him my campaign manager,ā Phillips said. āAnd the first decision I made when I became chairman of the D.C. Republican Party was to make him executive director.ā
Turner is among Phillipsā strongest supporters in his race for re-election as party chairman. He said attempts to link Phillips to anti-gay politicians were based on unfair tactics of āguilt by association.ā
Phillips points out that he also has appointed gay Republican activist Marc Morgan as the DCRCās Ward 1 chairman. Morgan, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, ran unsuccessfully as the Republican candidate for an at-large D.C. Council seat in the November election. Morgan didnāt respond to an inquiry from the Blade seeking his views on the chairmanās race.
In his day job Phillips is president and CEO of Republic Consultants, a D.C.-based public relations and business development firm.
The current president of D.C. Log Cabin Republicans, Chris Allen, whoās also a member of the DCRC, said the group is remaining neutral in the race between Phillips and Cunningham.
The reason for not making an endorsement, according to Allen, was logistical rather than political. He said Cunningham announced his candidacy for the chairmanās position in November, after the group held its November meeting. The group has a longstanding policy that requires candidates under consideration for endorsement to appear before the club at a meeting to answer questions from the members, Allen said.
Since there was no membership meeting scheduled for December due to the Christmas holiday and the DCRC election was scheduled for early January, Allen said club members decided to skip an endorsement in this particular election.
āWe just decided it would be better for our members to research the candidates on their own and kind of just make a decision,ā Allen told the Blade. āAnd Log Cabin would just officially stay neutral.ā
Allen said he was unaware of claims by Cunningham supporters that Phillips was in some way aligned with politicians that oppose LGBT rights. He said Phillips has been a member of D.C. Log Cabin Republicans since 2012.
āHeās spoken to our membership. Heās come to our different social gatherings in support of our group,ā Allen said. āSo I donāt know if he has other associations with anti-gay organizations. But as far as his association with our organization as chairman heās been very supportive.ā
Among those supporting Cunningham are Bob Kabel and Jill Homan, who won election in 2012 by D.C. Republican voters as the cityās National Committeeman and National Committee Woman respectively to the Republican National Committee.
At the time of their election, an NBC4 News blog written by local political commentator Chuck Thies reported that Kabel and Homan, who are gay, had the distinction of making D.C. the only jurisdiction among the 50 states to have an openly gay National Committeeman and Committee woman serving on the RNC at the same time.
Kabel is a longtime supporter and current board member of the national Log Cabin Republicans. He had served as chair of the DCRC for eight years before leaving that post due to a term limits provision in 2012, when he ran for the National Committeeman post.
Phillips has been highly critical of Kabelās tenure as DCRC chair, saying the problems that Cunningham and his supporters are blaming him for were actually created by Kabel. Among other things, Phillips calls both Kabel and Cunningham ācountry club Republicans.ā He said Cunninghamās alliance with Kabel indicates he would promote Kabelās āfailed policiesā as DCRC chair.
One of the policies Phillips attributes to Kabel, which he called highly damaging to the party, was a requirement that DCRC members pay dues of $250 to be a member and have the right to vote on the committee.
āThatās a poll tax,ā said Phillips, who points out that he quickly pushed through a policy change eliminating the dues requirement when he became chairman.
Cunningham, who says he played no role in initiating the dues requirement, said Phillips was misrepresenting Kabelās policies. He said the dues payment was not mandatory for all DCRC members and exceptions were made for those who could not afford to pay the dues.
āUnder Ron, all of our meetings in the past two years have been held at the Capitol Hill Club,ā Cunningham said. āYou canāt get any more elitist than that,ā he said in questioning Phillipsā claim that he and Kabel are country club Republicans.
If elected chairman, he would arrange for DCRCās monthly meetings to be held in all eight wards, with some to be held in church basements, Cunningham said.
In a related development, Homan, the co-owner of a D.C.-based real estate investment and development firm, announced late last year that she is a candidate for secretary of the RNC. The 168-member RNC was scheduled to vote on its four officers, including the posts of secretary, treasurer, co-chair and chair at its winter meeting in San Diego scheduled for Feb. 14-17.
RNC Chair Reince Priebus and RNC Treasurer Tony Parker, who is from D.C., were running unopposed. Homan is running against Vermont National Committee Woman Susie Hudson.
If Homan were to win her race she would become the first out gay or lesbian ever elected as an officer of the RNC.
In a letter to all RNC members sent shortly after the November election, in which Republicans won control of the U.S. Senate and increased their majority in the House, Homan introduced herself as a team player committed to helping RNC Chair Priebus advance the partyās mission.
āMy strong political and business experience will enable me to successfully carry out the duties of secretary,ā she said. āAs a team player and passionate grassroots activist, I will work hard to support our organization and leadership.ā
Homan did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment on her race for RNC secretary. But sources supportive or her and Cunningham, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Blade that allies of Phillips have been alerting potentially hostile RNC members that Homan is a lesbian with the aim of derailing her candidacy.
Phillips said he knows nothing about the alleged effort to derail Homanās candidacy because of her sexual orientation.
āI think Jillās biggest problem is that Tony Parker currently serves as RNC treasurer and heās from the District of Columbia,ā Phillips said. āI think itās going to be very hard for her to get elected secretary of the Republican National Committee when we already have one person from D.C. holding an officerās position.ā
According to Phillips, the RNC traditionally has selected candidates for its four officer positions from different regions of the country.
The Blade will report the outcome of the Cunningham-Phillips race when the election results become known.
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Honoring the legacy of New Orleansā 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 Orleansā 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, āUnited We Standā by the Brotherhood of Man.
āUnited we stand,ā the men would sing together, ādivided we fallā ā the words epitomizing the ethos of their beloved UpStairs Lounge bar, an egalitarian free space that served as a forerunner to todayās 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 ā 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: āSome thieves hung out there, and you know this was a queer bar.ā
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 āhelp our bereaved brothers and sistersā ā and shatter officialdomās code of silence.
Perry broke local taboos by holding a press conference as an openly gay man. āItās high time that you people, in New Orleans, Louisiana, got the message and joined the rest of the Union,ā 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.
āThis fire had very little to do with the gay movement or with anything gay,ā Esteve told a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer. āI do not want my bar or this tragedy to be used to further any of their causes.ā
Conspicuously, no photos of Esteve appeared in coverage of the UpStairs Lounge fire or its aftermath ā and the bar owner also remained silent as he witnessed police looting the ashes of his business.
āPhil said the cash register, juke box, cigarette machine and some wallets had money removed,ā recounted Esteveās friend Bob McAnear, a former U.S. Customs officer. āPhil wouldnāt report it because, if he did, police would never allow him to operate a bar in New Orleans again.ā
The next day, gay bar owners, incensed at declining gay bar traffic amid an atmosphere of anxiety, confronted Perry at a clandestine meeting. āHow dare you hold your damn news conferences!ā 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. āReverend Troy Perry awoke several sleeping giants, me being one of them,ā recalled Charlene Schneider, a lesbian activist who walked out of that front door with Perry.
Esteve doubted the UpStairs Lounge storyās 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 ā some with visible burn scars ā gathered but were discouraged from singing āUnited We Stand.ā
New Orleans cops neglected to question the chief arson suspect and closed the investigation without answers in late August 1973. Gay elites in the cityās 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, āWhere are the gay activists in New Orleans?,ā Esteve responded that there were none, because none were needed. āWe donāt feel weāre discriminated against,ā Esteve said. āNew Orleans gays are different from gays anywhere elseā¦ Perhaps there is some correlation between the amount of gay activism in other cities and the degree of police harassment.ā
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 ā with the exception of a few sanctuaries for gay political debate such as the local lesbian bar Charleneās, 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: āA tragedy that, as far as I know, no good came of.ā
Finally, in 1991, at Stewart Butler and Charlene Schneiderās 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 ā more than 18 years after the fire.
āI believe the fire was the catalyst for the anger to bring us all to the table,ā Schneider told The Times-Picayune, a tacit rebuke to Esteveās 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. Whatās left is an enduring story that refused to go gently. The story now echoes around the world ā 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 pastās 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 ā and how, 50 years onward, it became known internationally ā 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 ā in the spirit of voices who once gathered āround a white baby grand piano and sang, joyfully and loudly, āUnited We Stand.ā
Robert W. Fieseler is a New Orleans-based journalist and the author of āTinderbox: the Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.ā
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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 ā 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 ā whether or not either party is personally aggrieved and able bring to a lawsuit ā 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. Coloradoās own cases agree that the government may not use public-accommodation laws to affect a commercial actorās 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 Smithās 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.
āIām honored and ready to lead HRC ā and our more than three million member-advocates ā as we continue working to achieve equality and liberation for all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer people,ā Robinson said. āThis 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 ā and today I am making a promise and commitment to carry this work forward.ā
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.