Every time I see Dan Savage, I thank God for his voice in our movement. Here's a great segment on Joy Behar's CNN show (I didn't even know she HAD a show on CNN?!?) He has some choice words for Human Rights Campaign Fund.
Great, informative, entertaining stuff. Also included is a fairly hilarious exchange where Joy Behar assumes DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is gay, watch Bryan Batt and Savage's reaction to her blurting that out.
Behar draws you in with scenes from AMC's Mad Men, which featured a storyline of Sal, the closeted gay character getting fired when his gayness becomes a tiny hiccup in the workplace. Never mind, straight men on the show frequently have complicated workplace entanglements with women, and alcohol, that pass without comment, let alone reprimand. Actor Bryan Batt reminds us, in most of the country, this sort of thing is STILL perfectly legal in 2009.
She moves on to discuss the weekend's events with Dan Savage. Savage plain-spokenly reminds us that every time social change is in the air--blacks get the vote, women get the vote--there are always people screaming the sky will fall.
And he reminds us: they're always wrong.
Let's say it with him: they're always wrong.
He goes on to say Joe Solomnese and Hilary Rosen, current and past leaders of Human Right Campaign Fund, no longer speak to the GLBT youth that showed up at Sunday's March.
And I hope he's right. HRC doesn't seem to be staying in step, in my opinion. There does come a time when our leaders need to step aside to make room for a new generation of leadership. There comes a time when the counter-culture becomes seduced by the very culture they once fought. It seems apparent that time has arrived for HRC.
My inclination to give HRC the benefit of the doubt however was washed away by Solomnese himself. Responding to criticism of HRC in an interview with CNN's Don Lemon, Solomnese expressed a defense that positively reeked of arrogance and condescension:
...perhaps the crowd at the dinner last night was a little bit more politically aware and had a better sense of maybe, you know, what's at stake and what needs to be done.
I don't applaud the splintering of our movement, by any means. But Joe Solomnese does not speak for me. And I wish he would stop presuming to say he does.
Alas, apparently I have to die to revoke my HRC membership.