HRC Rationale on Milk Shop Takeover: Each Tourist Who Buys a T-Shirt or Tote Bag is a 'Potential Activist'
The AP has begun reporting on the anger over the Human Rights Campaigns plans to use Harvey Milk's old camera shop at 575 Castro as a boutique to sell its wares, though they claim it will also serve as an "action center," whatever that means.
The AP: "Milk's friends and admirers are so incensed at the group taking over the slain San Francisco supervisor's stomping grounds that they would rather see a Starbucks there, underscoring the tensions that exist within the various factions of the gay rights movement. The organization is a frequent target of criticism from gay rights activists who consider its mainstream, 'Would Harveyinside the Beltway' style ineffective. They believe the organization's philosophy of incremental progress in the gay rights movement runs completely counter to the uncompromising message of gay pride championed by Milk."
Said Cleve Jones to the AP: "[Milk] was not an 'A-Gay' and had no desire to be an A-Gay. He despised those people and they despised him. That, to me, is the crowd HRC represents. Don't try to wrap yourself up in Harvey Milk's mantle and pretend you are one of us."
HRC begs to differ:
"HRC creative director Don Kiser understands the concerns and says he is open to suggestions, but thinks the criticism is overstated. The group obtains about one-third of the new names on its mailing lists from visitors to its retail stores in San Francisco, Provincetown, Mass., and Washington. Each tourist who goes in to buy a Harvey Milk T-shirt or an HRC tote bag is a potential activist, Kiser says."
Watch a local news report on the controversy featuring Jones and Kiser, AFTER THE JUMP...
Previously...
HRC's Planned Rental of Harvey Milk Camera Shop Strikes a Nerve [tr]
(via queerty)
To the half-dozen or so commenters above who defend HRC because they are a "friend" and are "at least they are trying" to promote equality:
Look, if HRC were a self-funded project or if we lived in a world where gay people had unlimited resources, then sure, you could look upon HRC as a well-intentioned, if ineffectual, friend. But HRC is not self-funded. It draws $40 million per year out of a very limited universe of gay dollars. In return it provides at best something like $3-4 million in value. The other $36-37 million per year is lost. That is a catastrophic loss of resources on an annual basis.
What impact might that huge sum of money have had in defending the 3 justices in Iowa who were smeared and terminated by NOM and AFA, now boosting the efforts of anti-gay groups across the country? What might we have accomplished in Maine if instead of outraising our opponents by a little, we had achieved an overwhelming advantage? What might the NYS Senate look like today if we had had even $1 million extra to spend there last month to defend several pro-gay senators who wound up losing by a few hundred votes?
Instead all of that money went to pay for a hefty mortgage on an expensive building and on grossly inflated salaries for people who have no relevant connections on Capitol Hill. And so it goes each and every year.
Whatever the intentions of its officers and members, HRC is not a friend. The US is a less equal place for gay people than if HRC had never existed.
Posted by: James | Dec 14, 2010 5:14:40 PM
@Bobn:
There is nothing wrong with gays having a lobbying group to "play the game." But HRC doesn't know how to play. It doesn't hire former members of Congress or former senior staffers of key members. It doesn't retain any such people on a temporary basis. It doesn't change its lobbying team to reflect changes on Capitol Hill. Instead, it has 2 lobbyists on staff, neither of which came to the job with any relevant personal connections in the Senate or with any of the key members we need to move. They fail to do the basic things that even the Tomato Growers Association knows how to do when they go to lobby.
That is a major reason why HRC is in 2010 still working on its legislative objectives from 1980. And it is still failing.
Posted by: James | Dec 14, 2010 5:25:23 PM