Fed up with national organizations that won't listen to the grass roots,
LGBT activists yell and scream at HRC during their "Town Hall Meeting"
in New York.  Mandy Carter makes a surprise announcement.

--tal
http://whatexit.org/tal/writings/BoycottMOM

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Blade article on HRC town meeting
Friday, April 16, 1999 7:24 PM

HRC’s rifts unhealed
Birch apologizes for ‘deep pain’ caused from D’Amato endorsement, but
activists see meeting as a ‘train wreck’ 

By Heather Boerner

Wednesday’s town hall meeting between 250 gay New Yorkers and four Human
Rights Campaign leaders began with Empire State Pride Agenda Executive
Director Matt Foreman saying that he had a "churning in his stomach" at
the thought of emceeing the event. It ended with HRC Executive Director
Elizabeth Birch apologizing "deeply" for the pain HRC’s endorsement last
fall of incumbent U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato "caused all of you here
in New York."

In between those two moments, community members sometimes screamed at
representatives of HRC, the largest gay political organization in the
country, demanding that they apologize for the D’Amato endorsement
itself and not just the pain it caused New Yorkers. Others asked HRC
board members to tell them why they should get involved with HRC "given
its lack of credibility." And still others pleaded with HRC to change
the way in which the Millennium March on Washington — which HRC is
helping to organize — is being handled.

But some people praised HRC for sticking to its endorsement policy in
November even amidst the firestorm of controversy that erupted over the
decision.

Wednesday’s meeting, the first Birch and members of HRC’s board of
directors held in the city since the endorsement, came nearly two months
after HRC was invited to attend a similar meeting on "accountability" at
New York University but declined. Some New Yorkers took the group’s
absence at the "accountability" meeting — a meeting attended by other
national groups, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund — as a snub.

But HRC’s spokesperson David Smith said then that HRC would "move
mountains" in the future to attend such an event. And so Birch, board of
directors co-chair Jeff Sachse from Chicago, and board members Everett
Hamilton from Washington, D.C., and Abby Rubenfeld from Tennessee sat on
a small stage at the back of a cavernous meeting hall at the Lesbian and
Gay Community Services Center Wednesday night.  They defended the
D’Amato endorsement and listened to New Yorkers’ anger. At times, they
were taunted by jeers of "Was it wrong?" "Are you sorry?" and "Say you
made a mistake!"

In the end, the HRC representatives said that HRC is trying to improve.
But Birch maintained that HRC would not pledge that the group would
begin to embrace larger issues, such as the death penalty, even though
several speakers told the HRC leaders that, by focusing solely on what
they consider gay issues, such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act
and anti-gay marriage bills, they were ignoring the problems affecting
many in the gay community, including people of color, poor people, and
immigrants.

"Folks," Birch said, "what’s killing us is this all-or-nothing stuff. I
agree that the [D’Amato endorsement] was wrenching for all of us, but
what worries me is that people are willing to throw away 20 years of
activism [by HRC] over one decision. To some of you, it wipes out our
past, our long, substantial pro-choice history. You’re trying to reduce
everything to this."

Mandy Carter, an Albany-based activist and former staff member for HRC,
wept at the microphone set up in the middle of the room and told Birch
that the D’Amato endorsement is "symptomatic" of larger problems.

"Home was HRC to me for years," she said. "But the endorsement of
D’Amato, for myself, Barbara Smith, and Nadine Smith in Florida — for
three black lesbians — was so egregious. It hit us so hard that you
would endorse such a prominent racist and misogynist. And a lot of
people say, ‘Well, if you don’t care, if you don’t like HRC, why are you
here?’ That’s not it. We do care.  There are a lot of folks who aren’t
here tonight because they’ve already given up on HRC. But there are
bridge builders in the community who want to reach out, if they saw any
sign from you that you were open. It’s not too late."

Carter then unwrapped two bronze plates engraved with her name and
Barbara Smith’s name — community service awards HRC had given the two
women years earlier — and announced that she was returning them to the
organization in protest. She walked to the front of the room, put the
awards on the stage, and walked away. Many audience members gave Carter
a standing ovation.

Birch told Carter she is "open to an in-depth and continuous dialog"
with her about the Millennium March. The march, planned for April 2000,
is considered by some activists to be an example of top-down leadership
from HRC and the Metropolitan Community Church. They believe such
nationally symbolic marches should be called for and planned by
activists at the grassroots level. They criticize HRC and MCC for having
planned the theme and focus of the Millennium March before inviting
other organizations, including organizations 
for gay people of color, to become involved.

As attendees filed out of the hall around 10 p.m., some said that the
evening went about as they expected. Tom Houck, who recently moved to
New York from Washington, said he expected a "train wreck" and got it.
But he also said he was glad to see that HRC did have some supporters at
the meeting.

"I really agreed with a couple people who said that HRC is just one
organization," he said. "At the same time, as the largest gay
organization, HRC has to take responsibility for its organization’s
set-up and for how it’s perceived."

HRC board member from New York Craig Anderson called the meeting a "baby
step" toward reconciling the community’s relationship with the
organization.

Sally Kohn, who attended the NYU "accountability" meeting in February,
said that the two meetings drove home the same point.

"There are rifts in the movement," she said. "HRC is on a certain side
of that and believe that they need to just focus on the single-issue of
gay politics. That’s what they are. And there are others who are trying
to push for change and open the process. It’s symptomatic of a larger
problem in the movement."

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