There’s my standard answer: that it’s the nature of social change, and you can’t be the biggest organization in the movement and not expect that people aren’t going to aim their frustration at me. [And my non-standard answer:] It’s hard not to have it occasionally get you down and not have it occasionally hurt your feelings. If I try to filter the constructive from the non-constructive . . . I think it makes me better. And I think it makes all of us do a better job. ‘Us’ — ‘Gay Inc.,’ as it were, the people at the table — and ‘us’ — the armchair activists, bloggers and people who are engaged in civil disobedience. If it’s a meaningful exchange, I think it can’t help but make you better.
—Joe Solmonese, defending his record as the head of the Human Rights Campaign, in a Washington Post profile
Joseph
Fail.
stephan
I may be in the minority, but I think it’s a good response. There isn’t much more you can expect him to say…
adman
We are striving towards exellence, it makes us all better people. I know kissing ass to straights in Amerikkka, for my very survival with no rights of my own makes me such a better person. Yuck.
He’s a cute little power daddy, but so what, he’s still a lickspittle, so there.
gaylib
yet again its all about him. Hey Joe, I don’t give a shit about your feelings. The way he should handle his abysmal failure is to immediately resign. HCR is not Gay Inc. It has become Obama Inc. They have gone from lobbying the government on behalf of gay people to lobbying gay people on behalf of the Obama administration. Joe has actually set back our civil rights movement by years. He is a disgrace.
Lanjier
“Armchair activists?” as opposed to what? He thinks he is a “real” activist? He has to be out of his fucking mind. Bending over does not make you a real activist, Joe, it makes you a fucking whore.
Fitz
How did you like the little subtle “I’m just one of you guys” decision on wardrobe? I’ve never seen him photographed in something so casual.
Steve
@stephan:
He can say, “I resign.”
Mike
@gaylib: LOL. Yes, it was about him because that is what he was asked about!! LOL Anti-Joe folk are unhinged.
Cam
How is it possible to defend a record that doesn’t exist? If you have no accomplishments, just exactly how do you defend them? Oh wait, thats right, here is a list of his accomplishments made with donated gay dollars.
He got to meet
Rosie O’Donnell
Ellen
Neil Pattrick Harris
Got his picture taken with President Obama
Portia Di Rossi
Lance Bass
Oh and he gets to write off his suit budget. Wow, so his accomplishments sound great if you compare them to the guys over at Goldman Sachs who got bonuses for bringing down the American Ecomomy. I suppose next to them Solomnase is a sucess. But in the real world, somebody with so few accomplishments getting such a high salary should have lost his job ages ago.
Dave
GetEqual has replaced HRC. Yelling at people is the new strategy. Good-bye Joe.
PADude
Is it just me or is Joe looking a little stressed lately? I guess watching your salary be endangered due to your own incompetence will do that to a fellow.
Dave
GetEqual’s salaries are a lot more reasonable. We get 10 self-described “activists” for the price of one Joe Solmonese. 10 people making trouble and pissing people off is always better than one overpaid white guy in a tux.
Now, if we would ALL start screaming at Obama and Pelosi we will be given our equality. The louder the better.
Fitz
@Dave: Hopefully there is another alternative than either yelling at people or throwing them cocktail parties.
Nom
“How is it possible to defend a record that doesn’t exist?”
The hate crimes legislation and hospital visitation rights aren’t nothing, but yeah there’s more to do.
Tom
I worked in enviro advocacy for years and found that it took a combination of the insiders who always had a seat at the table and the outsiders in the field to get things done. Incremental change isn’t necessarily bad, the trouble is that HRC doesn’t have any discernable blueprint to equality in mind, even though their cash means that they’ll keep that seat at the table. If there was some sense of outrage over inequality from them, they’d seem a whole lot less like Gay Inc. At the same time, you can damn well expect that after any victory you’ll get a fundraising appeal from them, whether they were explicitly involved or not. I was supportive for a while, but after they made no effort to stop all those states from passing constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, that was enough.
Cam
Can you imagine just how much their fundraising must have fallen off for him to even admit that there is any dissagreement whatsoever with HRC? For years they wouldn’t even admit to that.
christopher di spirito
He’s looking increasingly simian these days.
james
Please joe is nothing but a doucebag, HRC would do more with out his sorry ass.
Sacramento
I met Joe at the SF HRC dinner last July (’09) and he was such a tool in person. He is useless and I can see why HRC is irrelevant. If I am hosting a gathering for 500 people that paid good money to see me and hear about my organization, I’m not going to get drunk and make inappropriate comments in the bathroom after. Joe, it’s time for you to go!
DEREK WASHINGTON
“Armchair activists”?
I recently received an email from a local Gay Inc pod who referred to “picket protesters”.
Not exactly the way to win friends and influence people.
Adam Jones
If this is the case why don’t the people who are angry start a letter writing campaign to HRC board members? Solmonese has already said it is up to the board when he is to step down. I imagine if Terry Bean, Hillary Rosen, Bruce Bastian and company started to get 100 -200 letters at their homes or offices detailing how HRC has let down the community they’d suddenly see their ivory towers knocked over and would see their money is being wasted. Most people are on a board for prestige, let them see that prestige erode (or in fact that people think they’re idiotic for being on the board) and you’ll suddenly see the board get active. The board member’s names are public information. It cannot be too hard to find the address for their homes or work place. Especially if you know the state they reside in. You want change? Make the board understand your legitimate concerns without having HRC spoon feed it to them… except you know, it would mean someone having to do some leg work instead of just bitching.