More than anyone, David M. Smith, pictured, has been the person running the Human Rights Campaign, keeping it joined at the hip with the Democratic Party and deciding the group's (and much of the entire LGBT community's agenda at the federal level) legislative and political agenda.
Smith has served as the wizard behind the HRC curtain since the 1990s, from when Hilary Rosen's then-girlfriend Elizabeth Birch came from Apple and was appointed executive director through the tenures of Cheryl Jacques and Joe Solmonese, and the first year of Chad Griffin taking the helm.
Here's Smith's auto-reply to an email sent to him this week:
Thanks for contacting me. I am no longer with the Human Rights Campaign. If you are writing on HRC business please contact Jennifer Pike.
Back in January over at BuzzFeed, reporter Chris Geidner broke the news that Smith would be leaving HRC at the end of June and Griffin stated:
Nearly every aspect of the Human Rights Campaign as it currently exists was made possible by his vision, his dedication and his unflinching belief that we should dream big. That’s why it’s with a heavy heart and eminent gratitude that I announce David’s decision to leave HRC in order to pursue an exciting new chapter in his career at the end of June.
Griffin's nobody's fool and I believe he knew when he was hired that he would need to ease Smith out of the organization if he were to really put his stamp on HRC and its programs.
That statement is an air-kiss as Smith's butt is kicked out of the organization's headquarters on Rhode Island Avenue in Washington and the HRC machine goes on. Not a beneficial thing for LGBT people concerned with more than access to the White House and Obama Administration officials, or networking via HRC's galas and dinners racket.
He's been in charge for a year, has certainly sized up the organization from top to bottom, and now that he has the Prop 8 Supreme Court ruling and incredible legal win as a trophy, I think the Griffin era at HRC is about to emerge.
Now more than ever, we all need to scrutinize this group deeper and question its gay and Democratic Party agendas.
great news Michael. We all know HRC is our 1% A list. but what has happened to NGTLF who has never mentioned Manning. When Urvashai Vaid (sp) ran it she was intelligently connecting all the dots and making the lgbt community allies, and not making us look single issue selfish. NGTLF endorsed clemency for Peltier in 2000, I ask if that still held today, burt got no answer. We either have to take NGTLF back, or start a more populist lgbt org that cares about the ild, the disabled and the poor, foster children and homeless kids, health aids among it's issues. Neither took a sie in the healthcare debate--maybe had a paragraph in a ten page website.
ReplyDeleteUFF DA! Ashonda. BTW East Bay Aids Walk or it's parent East Bay AIDS Advocay Foundation has not sent me 990s or answered my question about the $865 Friends of Ugandan Orphans being cashed or not. SF AIDSWALK xtill has $600 meant for Friends of Ugandan Orpahs after i had raise 2700 and had a firend ready to donate $3000 that I demanded reassurance. No-becuase our 501c3 is in Boston. They made it arduous for people to get their $$ back. SF Walk in 2012 was down $600,000 from 2011 tho bike ride raked in more. East Bay had it's lzrgest year when i participated--$103,000, then $80,00 when I began to ask peeps to send check directly to FOUO, then $60,000 last year. Hazel Wesson told me the number of peeps walking was way down this year. It's just gloria Cowell's walk and she boots out or alienates anyone trying to constructively help her. The bellicoseness of that of Susan Rice doesn't help either.