Meet The Guy GLAAD Hired To Repair Its Image
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has had a rough year. Their poorly-thought out support of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger was the domino that eventually caused the resignation of then president Jarrett Barrios. Now GLAAD has hired acting president Mike Thompson to restore their image. So how’s he doing?
Well, the fact that GLAAD withdrew their support from the AT&T/T-Mobile merger and issued a clear statement in support of Net Neutrality the week he took officer are both good signs. His arrival also heralded the resignation of eight GLAAD board members including AT&T flack Troup Coronado, signifying a cleaning of house and a change in GLAAD’s direction.
Thompson used to be the Executive Director of Equality Utah and under his leadership he helped draft pro-gay rights legislation known as the Common Ground Initiative that would have extended some states rights to gay couples. Though that legislation did not pass Utah’s conservative legislature, he did persuade lawmakers to pass antidiscrimination laws in several cities including the location of Mormon headquarters, Salt Lake.
That suggests that Thompson can work with staunchly conservative gatekeepers to become more sympathetic to LGBT-friendly points of view; a good skill to have when persuading networks to include more queers, women, and people of color on the airwaves.
Thompson told The Advocate “My job is to kind of refocus the conversation,” said Thompson. “Because of some things that have happened recently there might be question about the commitment to the mission, but I want to be very clear that the staff’s focus has never wavered. Nobody holds that space that we do. And if GLAAD weren’t here, there would be this void or vacuum, and opportunities would be missed.”
Mormon’s are twisted fucks. Bigots. Homophobes.
GLAAD is the producer of awards shows. I don’t get the connection.
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Could bloggers and grassroots LGBT activists do the same work as GLAAD? Is this ED also going to make 6 figure salary? If GLAAD is so necessary why does every other mega LGBT group release statements about celeb incidents (Tracy Morgan for example)? Will GLAAD every investigate the increase in depictions of condomless sex in gay porn, ads on gay hook up sites, and even in ads in some mainstream LGBT mags?
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Oh please, the legislation that was passed in Utah was supported by the Mormon church as a sheild against the fact that they were opposed to the REAL rights legislations going on. This way they could say “Hey, our church isn’t bigoted, we’re supporting housing non discrimination in Salt Lake City!”
Yeah, so he got something passed that the de facto ruling organization of Utah was planting.
Additionally, somebody who is so used to tip toeing around conservative organizations doesn’t really seem like he will be any good at making sure GLAAD is a voice for our rights. More likely he was hired to keep quiet and try not to upset the corporate donors to GLAAD.
Hopefully I am wrong, but if they wanted me to think they were serious they would have hired somebody from one of the organizations in NY that got marriage passed, or somebody from another state where we lost but put up a good fight.