New Republic's Blog: Gay for Pay -- U.S. State Dept, IGLHRC & Paula Ettelbrick

The executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Paula Ettelbrick, is facing well-deserved scrutiny and criticism over her stewardship of the group from James Kirchick on The Plank, the blog for the New Republic.

Before I share excerpts from Kirchick's post, I want to cast some light on how Ettelbrick was able in 2006 to not only serve as the head of IGLHRC, which, given the horrors gays and lesbians face daily around the planet should take up all if not most of her waking hours, but she also found lots of time to teach not at just one top-ranked college, but two.

For the spring 2007 semester, Ettelbrick will be teaching a sexuality and the law course at NYU.

I mention her part-time professorial work because at a time when USA gays and others beyond our borders hunger for leadership from IGLHRC for calls to action to combat the abuses gays suffer worldwide, we may be asking too much of Ettelbrick, considering her teaching gigs on top of also running the world's largest gay-operated human rights organization.

Now let's get to The Plank's post:

Case in point, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (whose knee-jerk anti-Americanism has been discussed before at TNR ) has refused to publicize the State Department's annual report on human rights, specifically its pertinence to gay rights abroad. Every year, State issues such a report and makes an effort to include countries' treatment of gays as part of a broader analysis in human rights trends. The latest controversy over IGHLRC is detailed in The Bay Area Reporter, a gay newspaper in San Francisco.

One really should read the BAR story to see how convoluted Ettelbrick's ways are. She tells the paper her group works throughout the year with State to improve the annual human rights report, but when it's released, she can't be bothered directing her communications director to issue a statement about it and educate everybody about how to use the report to raise awareness of antigay abuses globally.

More from The Plank:

Ettlebrick, who seems unable to open her mouth about the horrendous treatment of gays overseas without throwing in a line about how awful her own country is, said, "Who is the U.S. to issue a report on every other government in the world on its human rights activities, especially in light of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib?" Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo (the former a disgrace and the latter hardly so) should not rise to the level of epic disasters responsible for utterly destroying America's moral authority. But they have, largely because of individuals like Ettlebrick, who suffer from a serious case of moral obtuseness.

I disagree with Kirchick's contention that Gitmo is not a blot of shame for the USA, but nonetheless, his points about IGLHRC's leader are most valid. These are his final thoughts on all this:

As a supposed gay rights activist whose job it is to monitor how her brothers and sisters are being treated around the world (especially the third world), Ettlebrick ought to stick to her job. Last month, I wrote that that IGLHRC "does not really do much." Here is further confirmation of that assertion.

Even left-wing gays are taking IGLHRC to task. Michael Petrelis, a Green Party activist in San Francisco, said, "I grieve for my community and how it doesn't demand consistent, quality gay advocacy on crucial global gay rights abuses from our paid advocates." Indeed, the job of highlighting the State Department's report, in relation to gay issues, has been left to the decidedly unpaid D.C. activist Rick Rosendall, who does a fine job here.

Two years ago, Ettelbrick lauded the State Department report and its many gay citations. She told the Washington Blade: “Anytime a government acknowledges the human rights situation of LGBT people that’s a good thing."

Yes, Paula, you are so right with that thinking and for the life of me, I can't understand why your organization prefers silence to surround the latest State report over raising your voices about the annual human rights survey, and using it to advance international respect for gays and lesbians.

We need an international gay and lesbian human rights group that is not held hostage to the twisted political machinations and ideology of a leader who is more suited to the confines of a classroom, rather than the world stage where she should be putting gay rights first, America-bashing second, on her agenda.

New Republic: IGLHRC "Does Not Really Do Much," Ettelbrick's "Two Cents"

Writer James Kirchick in February posted a spot-on short critique of IGLHRC and its leader on the New Republic's blog, The Plank. The only thing I wish to add is that three days after the U.S. State Department issued the 2006 human rights report, full of gay and HIV citations, IGLHRC has steadfastly maintained a policy of silence about it.

What do you think gays and people with AIDS around the world feel about Ettelbrick and IGLHRC doing nothing to use the State Dept report to advance respect for their human rights?

Thank you, Mr. Kirchick, for speaking much truth, in a few words, about IGLHRC. From The Plank:

SELECTIVE DISCRIMINATION:

[...]Earlier this month, a United Nations consultative committee on NGOs rejected the credentials of the Coalition of Gays and Lesbians of Quebec, as well as a similar group from Sweden. [...]

This move seems to be a positive reversal in American policy, as last year our government backed a plan by Iran to block similar status for the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

Offering her two cents at the time was Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, which, in spite of it's highfalutin name, does not really do much. She said, "Unfortunately, denying LGBT groups a voice and a presence within the United Nations -- the world's most important human rights institution -- is fully in keeping with the U.S.'s assault on basic human rights principles worldwide."

It's comforting to know that an organization ostensibly devoted to protecting the rights of gay people around the world would focus its vitriol on the few nations that don't behead, imprison, or torture homosexuals. Last year, in the run-up to World Pride in Jerusalem (the only place in the Middle East where such an event could even be fathomed), Ettelbrick sent a message to her organization's board stating that "we do not feel it is appropriate to participate in a 'world pride' event in the middle of an occupation and in a location were our colleagues from the region could not travel to Israel to participate." [...]

It should be noted that the human rights concerns of IGLHRC have not prevented it from dispatching a delegation to a conference in Cuba, which makes Laramie, Wyoming look like the Castro, no pun intended.

HRC, IGLHRC Release on State Department's Gay/HIV Citations in Human Rights Report

"_____________________________," said Joe Solmonese and Paula Ettelbrick, leaders of the Human Rights (sic) Campaign and the International Gay Lesbian Human Rights (sic) Commission, on the new annual human rights survey from the U.S. State Department and the inclusion of many gay and HIV citations.

What do we get from the HRC and IGLHRC and their million dollar budgets and nicely compensated staffs on the incredibly valuable State Department report for 2006? Silence.

Last year, under pressure from bloggers and activists, HRC and IGLHRC, on the day the 2005 report came out, were certainly aware of it, examined the survey, then geared up their respective p.r. machines to show the community how on-top of things they are. But this year, neither gay "human rights" organization can be bothered to call our attention to the new State Dept report.

I grieve for my community and how it doesn't demand consistent quality gay advocacy on crucial global gay rights abuses from our paid advocates.

HRC is supposed to be looking out for our concerns and moving gay laws forward in Congress, which they're failing at, and it should also be working with State and other federal agencies.

And of course IGLHRC is allegedly the USA-based group doing nothing but global gay rights works, which never seems to include developing contacts at State and promoting the Dept's resources on our brothers and sisters globally.

Two days ago I contacted both groups and asked what they'd be saying or doing about the State report.

HRC has sent me releases on how they found a video of Bob Hattoy's 1992 DNC speech and how they just got around to saying "thanks" to brave straight GOP pols in Wyoming.

And IGLHRC's spokesman for some reason think I wanted his group to comment on a State report on Iran. Hello IGLHRC? The report in question is about ALL nation's, not just Iran, but clearly IGLRHC is clueless about it and has no intention to read it.

These are the emails from HRC and IGLHRC in response to my request for their comments on the new State Dept report:

In a message dated 3/7/2007 2:57:37 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, Christopher.Johnson@hrc.org writes:

Good news: we were finally able to locate video for Bob Hattoy’s groundbreaking speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. There’s a link to the video and a special tribute to Bob at www.hrc.org. We also uploaded it to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUashmbh1zQ

Chris

________________________________________
Christopher Johnson | Director of Public Affairs
Human Rights Campaign
1640 Rhode Island Ave. NW |Washington, DC 20036
202.216.1580 ( | 202.716.1628 mobile

christopher.johnson@hrc.org | www.hrc.org

And this is the message from IGLHRC:

In a message dated 3/8/2007 8:33:58 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, halizadeh@iglhrc.org writes:

Dear Michael,

Thanks for your messages and sorry for not getting back to you earlier, since due to weather condition in New York, I was working from home yesterday and was not able to access my phone messages.

IGLHRC currently doesn't have any plan to issue a response to the State Department's report on Iran. If in the future we feel there is a need for a public statement on Iran, I will definitely email you our communications.

Warmest Regards

-----------------------------

Hossein Alizadeh

Communications Coordinator

International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

80 Maiden Lane- Suite 1505

New York, NY 10038

USA

Phone: + 1 212-430-6016

Fax: + 1 212-430-6060

Email: halizadeh@iglhrc.org

Web: www.iglhrc.org

State Dept's Latest Human Rights Report Issued Today; Are Gay & HIV Citations Included?

For a number of years, Rick Rosendall of the Gay Lesbian Activists Alliance in DC, and yours truly, as unpaid volunteers interested in global gay issues, have done what we can to both pressure the State Dept to monitor and foster respect of human rights for gays around the globe, and to include the abuses and advances of gay people in the annual human rights report.

Neither Rick nor I, nor our brother across the pond, Peter Tatchell, who has greatly assisted us in our work as USA gays committed to working with our State Dept to benefit gays globally, is part of a group with millions of dollars and paid executives and researchers.

Click here to read about some of our work on improving the annual human rights report from State in 2005.

Go here and also click here for the two places on the web where you can read all of the gay and HIV citations from last year's annual report.

And if you click here, you'll find the 2004 gay and HIV citations, excerpted from the annual report.

So far today, the Human Rights Watch, the International Gay Lesbian Human Rights Commission, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and Amnesty International have yet to post notices on their sites about the overall report, or the gay and HIV citations.

I've contacted people at those organizations and asked them to let me know when they'll examine the report for its gay content, or lack thereof, and also if they have any plans to excerpt every gay and HIV reference in the new State Dept report.

It is my fervent hope I will hear back from all the groups about how they are coordinating reading the report, analyzing it, using it to benefit our brothers and sisters around the globe, and who should be thanked at the State Dept for including all the gay and AIDS references.

To read the State Dept briefing with Paula Dobriansky and Barry Lowenkron, undersecretaries for human rights and labor practices, click here.

Secretary Rice's short remarks on the new report are posted here.

Finally, and most importantly, click here to start reading the full country-by-country reports.

###





NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN RIGHTS

Among grossly overlooked issues in this country are Native American Indian rights; luckily there are some organizations in place to help the Native American cause.