LGBTQ Non-Profit Organizations
Lambda Legal celebrates 50th anniversary
Kevin Jennings says litigation is ‘crucial tool’ to advance LGBTQ rights
Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings in conjunction with his organization’s 50th anniversary said the courts remain crucial to the protection of LGBTQ rights in the country.
“Litigation has been the crucial tool for advancing the rights of the LGBTQ+ community,” Jennings told the Washington Blade during a Sept. 25 interview. “Lambda Legal has been at the forefront of that litigation for 50 years.”
The New York Court of Appeals in 1973 overruled a decision that denied Lambda Legal’s application to incorporate because its mission was “neither benevolent nor charitable” and “there was no demonstrated need for its existence.”
“We have to be our own first client,” said Jennings.
Lambda Legal represented a group of gay students at the University of New Hampshire who sued after then-Gov. Mel Thomson threatened to defund the entire UNH system if they continued their “socially abhorrent activities.” The U.S. Supreme Court in 1974 ruled in favor of the students in Gay Students Organization v. Bonner.
Lambda Legal in 1983 represented Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, an AIDS researcher who opened a clinic for people with HIV in New York’s Greenwich Village. His neighbors tried to evict him, but Lambda Legal and the New York attorney general’s office were able to stop the eviction in People v. West 12 Tenants Corps.
Police in Harris County, Texas, in 1998 arrested John Geddes Lawrence, Jr., and Tyron Garner, while they were having sex in Lawrence’s apartment and charged them with violating the state’s sodomy law. Lambda Legal represented the two men and the Supreme Court in 2003 struck down the Texas statute in Lawrence v. Texas.
Lambda Legal was co-counsel in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that extended marriage rights to same-sex couples across the U.S. Lambda Legal also represented Dana Zzyym, an intersex person who sued the State Department in 2015 after it denied them a passport because they do not identify as male or female. (Zzyym in October 2021 received a passport with an “X” gender marker, and the State Department now issues gender-neutral passports.)
Jennings on Sept. 28 spoke at an event at Paul Hastings LLP in D.C. after Jennifer Eller, a former English teacher in Prince George’s County who successfully sued the county’s Board of Education after she suffered harassment and discrimination because of her gender identity, introduced him. Lambda Legal on Wednesday held similar events in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago.
“The courts have been a central battleground for 50 years,” Jennings told the Blade. “I predict they are going to remain one for the next 50 years.”
Opponents using ‘shock and awe against us’
Jennings, who was born in Florida and grew up in North Carolina, was a teacher in Massachusetts when he founded what became known as the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and later GLSEN in 1990. He left the organization in 2008.
Then-Education Secretary Arne Duncan in 2009 appointed Jennings as Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Jennings was the CEO of Be the Change, executive director of the Arcus Foundation and president of the Tenement Museum in New York before Lambda Legal in 2019 named him as its CEO.
Jennings noted to the Blade that nearly 600 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in 47 states.
“We are facing the most concerted effort to rollback LGBTQ+ rights in my lifetime,” he said.
“Our opponents are using shock and awe against us right now,” added Jennings. “They are trying to overwhelm us and drown us in the number of anti-LGBT bills nationwide. That’s their own strategy.”
Jennings said Lambda Legal currently has nearly 80 active lawsuits across the country.
He noted Lambda Legal for the last two years has represented Becky Pepper-Jackson, an 11-year-old transgender girl who challenged a West Virginia law that bans trans students from school sports teams that correspond with their gender identity. The Supreme Court in April ruled in her favor.
“Becky is on her middle school cross country team,” said Jennings.
Lambda Legal is among the organizations that challenged a Florida law that prohibits the use of Medicaid funds for gender-affirming health care. A federal judge in June struck down the statute.
“Our opponents are trying to demoralize our community, and make us feel like we are going to be defeated,” said Jennings.
He added the “battle” for LGBTQ rights in many states is “moving from the State House to the courthouse.”
“It comes down to Lambda Legal to get them struck down in court,” said Jennings. “We are the community’s last line of defense.”
LGBTQ Non-Profit Organizations
Gov. Tim Walz to headline HRC National Dinner
Tickets still available for event on Saturday
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 š„„š“ (@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 schoolās 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 ‘Donāt Ask, Donāt 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.
LGBTQ Non-Profit Organizations
GLAAD’s 2024 Accelerating Acceptance study documents disinformation’s impact
Group will review findings at the DNC
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 ā particularly among Gen Z adults, the largest population of out Americans in history ā 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.”
āGLAADās 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.
LGBTQ Non-Profit Organizations
GLAAD president under fire for excessive spending
Spokesperson called New York Times report ‘grossly misleading’
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.”
GLAADās 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 Iāve been in the business. For shame: And … girl, bye. Long overdue.”
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