Petrelis Files

HRC to Hold Town Hall
in an NYC Bar!

For quite some time, I've been blogging on the lack of town hall meetings with the Human Rights Campaign, an org more known for champagne galas than open forums designed to mobilize and empower gay people.

I learned yesterday that HRC will soon put on a town hall event, of sorts, at a Manhattan bar and lounge, Therapy! The perfect place for a political meeting, right? No, not exactly! But HRC is sure excited and exclaiming about it!

From the HRC site:

The HRC Greater New York political committee is happy to announce that Talking Queer Politics is back - and the timing couldn't be better! The upcoming mid-term elections are pivotal to our goal of marriage equality in New York. [...]

However, these races are extremely competitive and we need to pull out all the stops and come out very strongly for those candidates who support equality. To get you ready for the election season, we have invited Marty Rouse, HRC's National Field Director, to review the races we are involved in and our strategy for winning!

All 62 seats of the New York State Senate are up for reelection this November, and the Republicans (who all voted NO on marriage equality) are fighting very hard to regain the outright majority control they lost in 2008. [...]

This fight is far from over, and together we can win! Please join us at Therapy on August 17th at 7:00 p.m. and find out how you can get involved!

HRC, which was once known as the Champagne Fund because of all the bubbly that flows at their fancy dinners, can't seem to ever get away from organizing with alcohol flowing. I guess the NYC gay community center in the Village and it's meeting room where drinks aren't served and lounge music isn't blaring, just is the wrong spot for HRC to hold an open meeting about an important upcoming election. Is there any other social movement that allows its leading advocacy org to hold town halls in a noisy bar?

HRC! Worst! Gay! Org! Ever!