Petrelis Files

HRC's Birch Plays the Shame Game
Over Larry Kramer

[UPDATED: Scroll down for new info.]

The former executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, Elizabeth Birch, is none too pleased with me getting an email from Larry about her group and posting it to my blog. She made her views known in a terse note. Here's the Birch email:

Dear Michael,

Shame on you. You know the truth.

Don't drag Larry into this to try and get credibility. The truth: HRC donated 3.5M ---- they were not asked to run it or for input ---- just money. You are too old to not be wiser than this.

Elizabeth Birch
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

This was my reply to her:

Hi Elizabeth,

If you wish to talk truthfully about who deserves shaming in the gay community, take a realistic look at HRC. It has raised more than $100 million in the last decade, ostensibly to win federal equality for gay Americans, and all we have to show for sending so much community funding to HRC is a big building on Rhode Island Avenue.

I didn't drag Larry into anything. His is one voice among the growing chorus of gays fed up with HRC and saying so. Actually, Larry's views on your organization are nicely summed up on his poster from a recent demonstration against an HRC dinner in NYC.

And speaking of credibility, yours could use some improving after you wrote on GoodAsYou.org recently that your former boss, the attention-starved and media-slut Rosie O'Donnell hates calling attention to herself. Right, and the pope is Jewish.

Regarding HRC's large role in determining the course of the disastrous No on 8 campaign, it began with Equality California, the HRC-affiliated organization that is a state clone of the national group. If you really believe HRC had a small and inconsequential role in the Prop 8 debacle, then you're suffering from a very severe case of Cleopatra Syndrome.

Frankly, I've always been too old to swallow the HRC Kool-Aid and I'm glad to see more gay Americans are waking up to the uselessness of your group.

Shed your queen of denial attitude and check out this post from Chris Crain for a large, and much-needed, dose of gay reality.

Cheers,
Michael

p.s. I forgot to include this bit of info from an August article in the Advocate:

All together, the total of contributions received from January 1 through July 31 to fight Proposition 8 approaches $6 million, according to Marty Rouse, national field director for HRC and an executive committee member of Equality for All, the coalition of groups working to defeat Proposition 8. 


So, Elizabeth, if the No on 8 campaign didn't want input from HRC as you claim, why the heck was Rouse on the executive committee running the show?