The gay ranks are getting a little stale. Good thing it’s almost time for the HRC-sponsored National Coming Out Day. Whoopee…
In addition to urging closeted queers come out and tell their stories, HRC’s also celebrating the AIDS Quilt. Because, you know, AIDS and gays go together like cookies and cream. Says HRC’s Mark Shields:
Twenty years ago, as the AIDS crisis was raging, coming out was literally a matter of life and death. In many ways, we have come a very long way in a relatively short time, and yet that lesson still resonates deeply today. Coming out and living openly is the most important thing that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight-supportive Americans can do to build lasting understanding and equality.
As part of their coming out celebrations, HRC’s asking like-minded folk to submit YouTube videos for a “patchwork of stories”. Awww, ain’t that inspiring?
We’re inspired, at least, so we’d like to take a second to say: “We’re gay!” Boy, that’s like the biggest weight off our shoulders…
Allen
Getting outted during my college years in South Dakota were one of the most difficult times in my life. Admitting to my friends that I’m gay made my skin crawl. I wasn’t ready to come out to them, but since someone decided for me … I had to be honest.
I lost many friends when that happened and, for a time, most of my family. It hurt knowing that I’m still the same good ol’ lovable Allen, but there’s just more color to him.
I’ve been out for 11 years now and yes, it’s been a challenge, but I’m glad I’m not deep in the closet, married w/ kids despising my true self. I never wanted to live like that and I hope most people will choose to be honest and open with who they are. I know that’s not true for some, but hey … who knows?
jackscribe
And I want NRC to come out. “Out” about their inflated payrolls and costs of “doing business”. What percentage of donations goes for various causes?
jackscribe
Whoops…HRC.
Leland Frances
Can’t be bothered to watch the vid. Is Joe standing next to the HRC flag again? Here’s what I want: I want him and HRC OUT of our lives. For all their success in “branding” they are irrelevant and impotent. Prove it for yourself. Call everyone in your family; ask every straight person you work with who HRC is. Go into a gay bar and ask everyone there who Joe Solmonese is. After 26 years of existence and at least a quarter of a billion dollars given to them over that time surely at least half of those you ask should know the answer. I bet you won’t get 10%.
I want them to stop pretending they have accomplished anything that justifies their $35 million dollar A YEAR budget and in any case stop taking sole credit for things that other groups worked on; stop spending $6 million A YEAR just on their salaries; stop trying to co-opt the issues that other groups were established for and do better such as SLDN regarding fighting DADT, and who ALSO advise gay and lesbian soldiers caught in its trap while HRC simply uses the issue as another excuse to suck my money out of the community. I want them to start sharing with local communities that they swoop into with their money vacuum sweepers AKA HRC dinners the millions of dollars they collect. NGLTF leaves gives back to locals TWO-THIRDS of what they collect at their regional dinners. I want Joe and the other execs of the Human Rights Champagne fund to go OUT into the streets sometime and demonstrate and sit in and shout for our riots where that would help and there are instances where it would. The Black civil rights movement learned that sitting inside their offices just wishing and hoping that equality would come to them wasn’t working. It’s 26 years after the fact that HRC should have recognized that, too. 26 years they’ve been in business, and I do mean BUSINESS. I want them to immediate that the harpie Hilary Rosen is the one really in charge at HRC, carrying on the same excuses for tactics and strategy started by her ex muff and ex HRC E.D. Elizabeth Birch. I want gays still sending them money, still believing in them to snap OUT of it, and financially starve them to death. Criticism of them has been building for the last five years and their only response is, as it has always been: how dare you criticize US; criticizing us only hurts the gay movement. HRC is too broken to ever be fixed.
If any of you who still believe in them can’t recognize that then recognize that HRC is the gay equivalent of the Borg and that resistance is futile.
Allen
So, putting up my coming out story on here was basically a waste you’re saying, right?
Leland Frances
No disrespect meant to your coming out experience, Allen, but this is just an updated version of an HRC-sponsored circle jerk—and one meant to add more people to their massive mailing lists. Look for a donation request coming to an e-mailbox near you soon. They don’t need to be pursuing coming out stories they need to be telling our stories and how they relate to our inequality TO NONGAYS!
Get off your overpaid asses HRC and stop preaching to the lavender choir!
Dawster
so, leland.. what you are saying is that coming out stories in a public venue is a waste of time? it’s not productive? other people being out is not effective?
Allen
That’s what I’m gathering, Dawster.
Remember, there are people who are just coming out and this is effective for them. Hell, maybe it reaches out to people who’ve been out for a long time? or people, like me, who are depressed and sad and fed up w/ their environment and want to do something that makes a difference? I don’t know. I’m just rambling.
Leland Frances
The more people out the better but that’s not what I was talking about. I was talking about the source of this idea, HRC, and their pattern of simultaneously doing a song and dance to make people think that their doing more than they actually are and using it to feed their revenue stream.
As for this “public venue,” while on its face the idea of more coming out story videos on YouTube sounds like a good one, if you type “coming out” into their search engine, you get 84 THOUSAND 200 hits. I think it’s reasonable to assume that there are already more than enough examples for anyone of whatever age looking for inspiration on YouTube about coming out could already have found it.
Instead of encouraging this circle jerk which costs HRC nothing but lets them appear hip and cool and so state-of-the-Net-arty, they could have come up with an idea that, god forbid, would have required them to spend some of their MILLIONS of dollars for something beyond building a bigger echo chamber. For example, a full-page ad in “USA Today” with some of the countless coming out stories they already could quote which might both educate the nongay public AND give closeted gay readers the courage to come out.
Leland Frances
I’m sorry to hear that you’re “depressed and sad and fed up w/ [your] environment,” Allen. But urge you to look somewhere other than HRC if you “want to do something that makes a difference” — beyond being solicited, e.g, to spend $250 to go to one of their dinners and see them give awards to people like Reichen.
NGLTF is far from perfect, but they’re much closer to a real gay ACTivist organization than HRC has ever been. If you go to http://thetaskforce.org/ and pick your state from the drop down list on the lower right-hand side under “ACT LOCALLY” you can find out what’s going on in your state and click on links to local organizations involved. Good luck, and be gentle with yourself. The best is yet to come.