As we all know, the Human Rights Campaign has endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. Many Sanders supporters reacted with surprise, citing among other things, Clinton’s support for DOMA, her “farcically late conversion” on gay marriage, or the fact that she scored below Bernie’s consistent 100% rating on HRC’s own scorecard (2004, 2006, 2008). Not to mention Bernie’s long-standing support for gay equality stretching back to the 1970’s.
But if this endorsement surprised you, well, then you don’t know the Human Rights Campaign. Don’t forget, this is the same organization that endorsed the anti-gay-marriage Joe Lieberman over his more deserving, pro-gay-marriage challenger Ned Lamont in 2006. As if to ensure HRC’s actions were placed beyond the reach of satire, Lieberman was also endorsed by virulent gay marriage opponents in the same race. Spoiler alert: Lieberman won. Then, fresh off bear-hugging Bush’s War in Iraq, Lieberman went on to endorse John McCain for President over the HRC-backed Barack Obama. Oops.
Two years later, HRC pulled the same act. In the 2008 Maine Senate race, they endorsed Republican Susan Collins, splitting with the state LGBT group Equality Maine, who endorsed Democratic opponent Tom Allen for his superior record on LGBT issues. Feeling spurned by this endorsement and others, queer and transgender activists launched a protest of the annual HRC dinner in 2008. The outcry seemingly had little effect, because HRC again endorsed Collins in 2014 over a similarly better-suited opponent.
So, yeah, go ahead and act shocked (“Wow!”) that the Sanders campaign would lump the Human Rights Campaign in with the “establishment”. I think attorney and organizer Hugh Baran put it best when he said “Ultimately, what HRC values is access to power, and its money certainly does provide it with access.” Is there any better definition of “establishment” than that?