Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz will be the keynote speaker at the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner on Saturday, the organization announced on X.

BIG NEWS: We are thrilled to have Vice Presidential Nominee Governor Tim Walz join us at our National Dinner! He has been a steadfast champion for the LGBTQ+ community and will continue fighting for our rights once he is elected to the White House. pic.twitter.com/nRsZfzuMYg

— HRC 🥥🌴 (@HRC) September 4, 2024

Tickets are still available for the event. HRC is also hosting an Equality Convention this week, “a destination for trailblazers in politics, culture, and business who are igniting change and driving LGBTQ+ equality forward.”

When Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic 2024 presidential nominee, announced Walz as her running mate on Aug. 6, HRC President Kelley Robinson said her pick “sends a message that a Harris-Walz Administration will be committed to advancing equality and justice for all.”

The group wrote in a press release: “Governor Walz is a career-long champion for LGBTQ+ people. In 1999, as a history teacher and football coach, Walz sponsored the school’s first gay straight alliance student group.

“He opposed efforts to ban same-sex marriage in the Minnesota Constitution. While serving in Congress, he co-sponsored legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), voted to repeal the discriminatory ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law, voted for the Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and introduced legislation to protect LGBTQ+ service members from discrimination in benefits.

“As Governor, Tim Walz signed an Executive Order banning the dangerous practice of ‘conversion therapy’ in Minnesota.”

HRC in May pledged $15 million to organize in key battleground states for the Democratic ticket. Just days after President Joe Biden stepped out of the race and backed Harris as the presumptive nominee, the group raised more than $300,000 for her campaign in a virtual fundraiser.

GLAAD released the 2024 Accelerating Acceptance study on Thursday, which found that acceptance for LGBTQ people remains at supermajority levels, but overall support for the community has dropped slightly as reports of discrimination have risen.

At a glance, the organization’s top-line findings reveal that:

• 95 percent of non-LGBTQ Americans believe schools should be safe and accepting for all youth,

• 93 percent say children should be taught to appreciate and accept people as they are,
• 80 percent support LGBTQ equal rights, down from a record high of 84 percent one year ago, and
• 70 percent of GenZ LGBTQ adults report discrimination based on their sexual orientation.

The 16-page report is available here. GLAAD’s Media Institute has published Accelerating Acceptance studies each year since 2015. The organization will hold a briefing at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 20 to review this year’s findings.

As the data shows, “more non-LGBTQ people have been inspired to speak up for LGBTQ equality as a result of accurate news coverage,” GLAAD wrote in a press release, “and voters have shown up in election after election to reject extremist candidates and their anti-trans campaigns.”

However, along with the findings about discrimination — particularly among Gen Z adults, the largest population of out Americans in history — respondents also report “negative mental health impact, fear for their safety, and online and real world harassment as a result of the political discourse in the country.”

“GLAAD’s 2024 Accelerating Acceptance Study arrives at a monumental inflection point for the LGBTQ community and for our entire country,” GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis said. “While acceptance for LGBTQ people remains at supermajority levels, the data this year also sounds substantial alarms about threats to this progress and to freedoms valued by every American.”

“The same extremist lawmakers, judges and media sources targeting abortion access, contraception, free and fair elections, and free speech, are using the same strategies of fear and disinformation to undermine LGBTQ people and our equality,” Ellis said.

She added, “Fortunately, the data also points to proven ways to keep expanding and accelerating acceptance.”

The online study was conducted in January 2024 with a nationwide sample of 2,511 U.S. adults.

GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis is under fire for excessive spending following a report in the New York Times on Thursday, which suggested the first class airfare, hotel accommodations, and car services booked by the organization’s chief executive for business travel far outpace the expenses of leaders of similarly sized nonprofits.

Quoting legal, nonprofit, and ethics experts, the article suggests Ellis and GLAAD’s actions may also have violated IRS rules, including their decision to not declare spending on Ellis’s home office renovation as income on her personal tax forms.

When Ellis joined in 2014, the article notes, GLAAD was in dire financial straits. Elevating the group’s public profile and expanding its purview, Ellis had quintupled its revenue to $19 million by 2022.

“Major donors have included media and tech companies such as Netflix, Google, and the Walt Disney Company; philanthropists like Ariadne Getty; and the New York City Council,” the Times wrote. “In 2022, the billionaire MacKenzie Scott donated $10 million.”

GLAAD’s chief communications officer, Rich Ferraro, said the board took Ellis’s performance into consideration when deciding her compensation, as under her leadership the advocacy group had started punching above its weight.

In a statement to the Advocate, Ferraro called the article “deeply misleading,” specifically disputing claims about Ellis’s annual compensation and denying that she ever took home “anything near” $1 million per year.

The organization has tussled with the Times in the past over the paper’s coverage of transgender issues. The Times, meanwhile, told the Advocate the paper stands by its reporting and noted GLAAD did not challenge any facts in the story.

Andy Lane, who has held senior roles in LGBTQ philanthropy, wrote on Facebook “GLAAD is a fraud, and has been as long as I’ve been in the business. For shame: And … girl, bye. Long overdue.”