What Does It Take to Be on the Board of 4 Gay Equality Groups? How About a History of Working for Homophobes.
GLAAD, of course, is in meltdown over its decision to support the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, a move that doesn’t immediately jump to mind as one of the top ten gay priorities of 2011 or any other year for that matter. At the root of it all seems to be board member Troup Coronado, who in an amazing coincidence used to be a lobbyist for AT&T. Even more amazing is who else Coronado used to work for: the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing idea factory with a long history of—you guessed it—anti-gay positions. Not exactly the resume you’d expect for a board member of a gay watchdog group, but then again not something that seems to appear on Coronado’s resume.
In a nice reporting job in the Washington Blade, Phil Reese lays out Coronado’s affiliation with the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s, where Coronado’s primary job seems to have been working on a minority outreach program. Coronado also was affiliated with another organization whose primary goal was to pack the federal judiciary with Bush appointees—you know, the ones who would be weighing in on such small matters as gay marriage. And just to make it the trifecta, Coronado also once worked for Orrin Hatch, the Republican Senator from Utah, who thinks that politics is the religion of gays.
At least four gay organizations have displayed their total lack of knowledge of Google search by having had Coronado serve in high-profile positions: GLAAD, the Equality California Institute, the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, and the Human Rights Campaign. (The alternative–that they knew about Coronado’s history and didn’t care–is too appalling to consider.) In another of those cosmic coincidences that seem to dog Coronado, three of the four sent letters to the FCC opposing net neutrality, which happened to be the telecom industry’s position. To its credit, HRC refused to sign onto the idea.
Of course, Coronado has loudly repented his past actions—NOT. Which makes one wonder: if supporting antigay think tanks, right-wing judges and restrictions on freedom of the the web can get you onto the board of a gay organization, what does it take to get you kicked off? Apparently, only a public uproar about gay rights organization’s harboring board members with anti-gay pasts.
Putting aside all the sweet talk about their role in strategy, etc., boards of directors are primarily fund raising positions. If youo have connectionsn to money you are several steps ahead of everyone else in line for a board position. It’s all about the money.
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As if you needed such things to tell you that entities like the HRC and GLAAD and others are out of touch with those they represent. They are funding monsters with no real concern for or desire to hear your point of view. The sooner the gay “community” wakes up and disavows these groups in favor of less self-serving organizations, the better off we’ll all be.
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Adding to what @joe said, to get onto a board of a major rights org. you need access to people with clout and/or money, PLUS some background in a grassroots organization with a catchy title. (Doesn’t matter whether the group actually accomplished anything, though!)
Hate to be cynical, but many of these people are so insulated from the real world: they know too little about the people’s lives they’re supposedly representing.
They do throw some swell galas though, don’t they?
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@John: What would you suggest we do to reform them? I agree that BigGayInc needs to change, but keep seeing the same faces bounce from one org. to the next.
p.s.: I can’t speak for others, but I don’t hate people on boards of the bigger groups, I just think they’re often rendered ineffective & largely inefficient by their insulation & inbreeding!
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At SF Pride, I asked for interviews for my YouTube channel from EQCA, HRC, and GLAAD. GLAAD very defensively declined to chat with me – I didn’t even give them a heads up on what I would ask but perhaps they had been given instruction on what to expect.
To their credit, an EQCA staffer answered some of my questions on this. The HRC staffer however made clear he’d only answer non-controversial questions.
Vid up soon.
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@John:
So that’s one vote for “fool me twice, shame on me.”
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It sounds like the only thing you need to get on the board is to come in and loudly proclaim that you know somebody who knows somebody who has lunch with people that know people who have a friend who’s a lobbyist who MIGHT be able to get a nice donation to the group arranged.
Seriously, if they aren’t even bothering to put gay rights supporters on the boards of these groups, then what are they? Donation scams to line the pockets of the board?