The Human Rights Campaign wants to know- and I want Montana to be clearly and substantially represented. It took me 10 minutes. And you don’t have to be from Montana to take it- it’s nationwide.
Take the survey HERE.
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Tag Archives: HRC
No Patience
Infographic- Supreme Court Decision
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How the Internet Turned Red to Support Marriage
Donors For Marriage Equality Dwarfed Those Who Opposed It
Human Rights Campaign 2791 (Photo credit: tedeytan)
From HRC Blog:
The number of contributors who gave in support of marriage for gay and lesbian couples was thirteen times greater – about 133,000 compared to an estimated 10,500 – than those giving financial resources to oppose marriage equality. That’s according to a new analysis HRC released today.
Polls consistently show – USA Today/Gallup and ABC News/Washington Post being the latest examples – that a majority of Americans support committed gay and lesbian couples getting a marriage license.
HRC obtained financial contribution data in each of the four states through the Maine Ethics Commission, Maryland Board of Elections, Minnesota Campaign Finance & Public Disclosure Board and Washington Public Disclosure Commission. Supplemental data was obtained from each of the pro-marriage equality ballot committees to account for small donors not required to be itemized by law. Anti-marriage equality donor information was aggregated from currently available public reports and estimates of non-itemized contributions.
Pro-equality groups raised more than $34 million in the four states, mostly from small donors. Anti-marriage equality campaigns raised $12 million, of which nearly two-thirds ($8 million) came from just three sources: the National Organization for Marriage, the Catholic Church and its affiliate the Knights of Columbus.
NOM, the largest funder in all four states to defeat marriage equality, saw a one-third decline in contributions for 2011, with two donors providing 75 percent of its funding, according to tax returns obtained last month by HRC.
Related articles
- Where are we going with marriage equality? (jaypinho.com)
- Again and Again, Statistics Tell a Positive Story About Catholics (newwaysministryblog.wordpress.com)
The President at HRC: Nothing To Sniff At
I was going to give a bit of a recap of President Obama’s address to the Human Rights Campaign diners on October 1st- but when someone else already does what you would have done anyway- and probably better, it’s best to just get out of the way.
Over at Towleroad, the recap included some important points:
President Obama was urged this week to come out for gay marriage in his address to the Human Rights Campaign. He didn’t do so last night – not explicitly. But did he imply it? Toward the speech’s end, he cited New York’s marriage law as a triumph of democratic change. Might that be an indirect way of saying, “I’m with you on marriage”?
It’s progress led not by Washington but by ordinary citizens, who are propelled not just by politics but by love and friendship and a sense of mutual regard. It’s playing out in legislatures like New York, and courtrooms and in the ballot box. (…) It happens when a father realizes he doesn’t just love his daughter, but also her wife.
It’s disappointing that the president won’t make his “evolving” position clear. But last night’s speech was nonetheless a juggernaut. It opened with a wisecrack: “I also took a trip out to California last week, where I held some productive bilateral talks with your leader, Lady Gaga.” Snarky, yes: Gaga as Kim Jong-Il. The president throwing shade.
Joking aside, he seemed acutely aware of the complaint he’s getting from the LGBT community: that he’s too slow on civil rights. So he reminded us that he has never counseled patience in the fight, which he conflated with the movement for black civil rights. Then, without sounding triumphal, he went through the stack of accomplishment in his first term: hate-crime legislation, DADT repeal, abandonment of the government’s legal defense of DOMA (whose repeal he backs), lifting of the HIV travel ban, the “first comprehensive national strategy” to combat HIV/AIDS, hospital visitation rights for gay partners. (He didn’t mention the State Department’s new policy that makes it easier for transsexuals to change their passports.) (emphasis mine)
Nothing to sniff at.
Indeed. We may sometimes forget that this president has done more for LGBT equality than every other president before him.
We shouldn’t.
HRC, GLAAD, Montana and Lady Gaga
Some clarifications about yesterday’s post– especially addressing the concerns and comments from the same post on LGBTQ Nation:
They do some great things, but HRC did not do its homework. The Montana GOP was first in it’s criminalization plank, back in the mid-90′s according to Bowen Greenwood on Brian Kahn’s Home Ground (Yellowstone Public Radio, Sept 2010). According to its press release, HRC thinks Montana copied Texas. The reality is that Texas either copied Montana or sadly, came up with it on its own.
http://www.ypradio.org/programs/local/home_ground.html
GLAAD did not report on the this issue until September 20, 2010 when the Montana AP went national with this issue.
http://www.glaad.org/page.aspx?pid=1871
They knew about it in mid June 2010 , when the Montana 2010 GOP Plank was issued.
If Lady Gaga knew that Montana, Wyoming and Idaho were not on the radar of the national gay rights agenda, I wonder how fast the shit would hit the fan…. The fact is, there is a priority system in favor of numbers- not ideology, among the big gay rights organizations. And sexy publicity that makes noise and press gets the action- not oppressive legislation or codified bigotry affecting only a fraction of the population.
It’s not right. All persecuted human beings in the USA deserve equal support- even in the less populous states.
That’s all my post was supposed to say. That’s all I want- equal treatment for all by the equal rights organizations to which I belong. Not third-class citizenship based on where someone happens to be born, work or live.
I am a member of HRC. I have been for years. I am not ready to give up on them- or GLAAD, not yet- but I do want them to know that we are paying attention out here.
And, hopefully, you are, too.
Tracy Morgan And Montana
You may have heard that actor Tracy Morgan (30 Rock) mentioned in his stand up act in Nashville Tennessee that if his son were gay, he would “pull out a knife and stab” him.
Of course, GLAAD and HRC were all over him, as were many in the LGBT and the mainstream media. And Morgan later apologized.
So what does Tracy Morgan have to do with the State of Montana?
Well, Montana got away with it.
Both the actor’s statements and the official Montana Republican Party Platform plank calling for the criminalization of The Gays are equally offensive to me. Morgan’s statement much like the Montana GOP sends a clear and dangerous message to gay and lesbian youth: You are not our equal. You are criminally offensive.
Tracy Morgan is one man, the Montana GOP represents a whole STATE.
So, where was GLAAD? Where was HRC? Where were the Log Cabin Republicans? Where was our local media?
Just another reason to not renew my HRC membership this year. To the big LGBT rights organizations, it seems, Montana doesn’t matter.
We’re collateral damage.
From Eternity To Here 