At one of the rallies supporting same-sex marriage outside the US Supreme Court last week, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) asked Jerssay Arredondo from the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Program (QUIP) to speak. Prior to getting onto the stage however, HRC revised Arredondo’s speech, and asked him not to mention that he was an ‘undocumented immigrant’. As Arredondo said, HRC effectively asked him to ‘go back into the closet’. Further reports from the rally stated that HRC asked other people in the audience not to wave trans* flags because ‘marriage equality is not a trans*’ issue.
As HRC logos adorn the Facebook and Twitter profiles of thousands around the world in support for same-sex marriage, these instances open up a large question about the role of HRC, the largest LGBTIQ organisation in the United States, in the campaign. Whilst the logo has been used to support same-sex marriage, there is an open question as to what else it is supporting.
Now, I have never worked with, or for, HRC, so I do not have a first-hand account of how they operate as an organisation. But as I have seen their logo all across my computer screen, and heard stories about how they have acted over the past week (as well as how they had acted in the past), I thought it was worth doing some more research on the organisation. And in doing so it became clear the HRC has a very sordid history with the GLBTI community in the United States; one which really brings into question the support they are gathering from the last week’s campaign. As a largely middle to upper-class organisation focused on political lobbying and fundraising, HRC has a history that involves questionable tactics, ignoring important issues, and most problematic of all, sacrificing other members of the queer community to gain support for particular issues.
Let’s start with the basics. HRC promotes itself as ‘the largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans’. Despite their claimed broad ranging agenda however, and the cash that has comes behind it, the organisation has often focused on what one could call ‘middle-class’ issues, with a particular current focus on marriage equality. In other words, whilst promoting a large agenda, HRC has actively ignored significant issues such as youth homelessness and suicide, racial justice and immigration, and issues pertaining to trans* and intersex folk. As Derrick Clifton reflected in the Huffington Post:
“The HRC has yet to make a strong, substantive appeal on youth homelessness, which disproportionately impacts LGBT communities.
The HRC has a long history of throwing trans* people under the bus. Many folks still remember them dropping the “T” while attempting to push the Employment Non-Discrimination Act through Congress in 2007… and it still failed to capture enough votes to pass in the Senate and become law. They’ve since reverted to supporting a trans-inclusive bill, yet many still feel the sting.
The HRC has tokenized and otherwise has given lip service to issues pertaining to LGBT communities of color. Racial justice (or even an allusion to it) isn’t even listed on their website’s “issues” tab as part of a broader strategy. And dare we not address how that functions from within, given the racism many people experience in LGBT* spaces and forums.”
And this issue is really important as it goes directly against the HRC brief. HRC is not ‘Americans for Marriage Equality’, but rather the largest, and wealthiest LBGTIQ organisation in the United States. It boast itself to donors and supporters with a broad ranging agenda, yet when crunch comes to crunch, it tends to focus its energies on the issues that reflect its donors more than it reflects the broader community.
But more importantly, this singular focus has meant is that in aiming to achieve its goals, HRC has actively worked to push aside particular parts of the queer community, in order to gain extra ‘rights’ for other particular members of the community.
For example, following the 2004 elections, it was reported that HRC was actively considering working on a deal with the Bush Administration in which it would support efforts to privatise social security in exchange for the right of gay and lesbian partners to receive benefits under the program. More recently, HRC was criticised recently after it gave Goldman Sachs it ‘2011 Workplace Equality Innovation Award’. This included the releasing of a video titled ‘Americans for Marriage Equality’ featuring Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein. The award and video were criticised for giving cover to Goldman Sachs, despite the impact they had on the 2008 financial crisis, and therefore the huge negative impact they would have had on many queer people.
In probably its most controversial action, in 2007 HRC actively backed away from a promise that it would not support an non-trans*-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). With passage likely in the year, HRC actively side-tracked the trans* community, effectively telling them that they would have to wait for another time for protection against discrimination. Whilst HRC has now reversed that position and once again supports a trans* inclusive ENDA its 2007 actions left a very bitter taste in the mouth of many.
Even with all of this, HRC’s current campaign on same-sex marriage comes after lots of resistance from the organisation to take charge on the issue. Whilst advocates have been fighting for marriage equality for decades, with the first success coming in 2001, in many ways HRC has been rather late to the party. Following the 2004 elections, in which HRC was largely uninvolved in campaigns against constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage, the organisation actively pushed advocates to take a slower approach, and focus on ‘relationships’ rather than legislative change.
Maribel Hermosillo reflects on all of these issues, by arguing that all of these issues reflect an middle to upper-class approach; one which simply tokenises other members the community, but pushes them aside when its crunch time.
“The HRC’s message is that the LGBT inequality in the U.S. only impacts middle to upper class white couples. The HRC tokenizes the involvement of people of color at the intersection but refuses to give them the opportunity to truly voice their experiences.”
Quoting her again, she says that the events last week showed the real flavour of the organisation:
“This sounds like HRC has a specific message they want the U.S. to understand by romanticizing marriage equality to be an issue of love and not of discrimination. If the HRC was concerned about issues of discrimination then trans*, people of color, undocumented and working class would be represented fairly in the campaign for marriage equality.”
The use of the HRC logo over the past week has provided a great way for people to show support for same-sex marriage. Unfortunately however, the HRC logo isn’t just about marriage equality, it’s also about an organisation that has significant issues in the way it deals with the queer community. Although I may not join you, feel free to go ahead and show support for the issue, but please think twice when putting that logo onto your profile.