This Tuesday Human Rights Campaign’s president Joe Solmonese will announce his intention to leave the HRC on the final day of his contract—March 30, 2012. Now we get to play, “Who will the HRC hire next to defend Obama throughout the 2012 election season?” Here’s an idea: Instead of hiring a White House PR flack, why not elect someone who will actively battle the National Organization for Marriage and the anti-gay Republicans while financially supporting LGBT efforts to make Obama deliver on HIV, trans employee protections, and finally killing DOMA? It’d be a heck of a lot more effective than the HRC’s current agenda of defending Obama’s missteps while trying to convince us that they’re still relevant.
Keithincali
Joe didn’t want to confront anyone so he just took what he was given. That’s not what the HRC supporters expected to get for their donations. Adding insult to injury, Joe is raking in $350K a year for the spectacular job he’s doing of driving away supporters.
christopher di spirito
The champagne queers in Washington have lost their Queen. Maybe now, the HRC will get a confrontational leader who isn’t afraid to hold Obama’s feet to the fire?
oldgayvermonter
So sad…whoever will organize all those awards banquets and cocktail parties?
Cam
Joe was no doubt offered a payback for carrying water for the administration. He will no doubt move on to some high paying position that was promised him before he even took the position with HRC.
Joe was head of the largest gay rights organization in the nation during a time when the possibilities for movement in gay rights was at it’s greatest, and he dropped the ball and would have lost us all those chances if grass roots people and an upstart organization hadn’t come in, pressured Congress and saved our asses.
Then again, why should Solomnase care, he gets paid whether we get any rights or not.
ian
good riddance joe. the HRC is about perpetuating itself. the last thing it needs is to achieve equality. better to just pretend to be working towards equality. I doubt that will change with a new leader.
Will
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Barriso – CHECK
Solmonese – CHECK
Next up is Rea Carey of The Task Force
Abirdwillingtobeitself
I think the comments here are unnecessarily strong, and I would ask Daniel not to stoke the fires by questioning the relevance of the Human Rights Campaign. Whether the HRC president does a good job or a bad job, what he says and does remains relevant. He takes action and he sets a tone for reform, which makes other organizations take notice and follow his lead.
christopher di spirito
@Abirdwillingtobeitself: FOFLMAO!
the crustybastard
My only question is whether the administration is offering LogoJoe a job, or the DNC?
Ultimately the real purpose of the HRC is to get HRC employees better jobs. Thus, they’re extremely successful.
As a advocacy/lobbying organization, they’re a very bad joke.
macmantoo
If you vote for a republican president you might as well accept DOMA as being a new constitutional admendment. That is what those twats have signed on for.
Abirdwillingtobeitself
@the crustybastard: It’s important to keep a sense of measure. If “ultimately” and “the real purpose” is what it comes down to, then you’re not looking at the HRC realistically. As a realist and as someone who does take an interest in political science, I think it’s important to acknowledge that the HRC plays a formative role in creating change and shaping consensus.
alan Balehead
Now that he has all his coporate “sponsors lined up”….he can do this…thanks for throwing equal rights under the bus Joe!!!
xander
Rumours that Solmonese will jump ship to the government may be ill founded: there’s no way they can match his compensation package, based on a few DC Human Resource people I spoke with today. He may do better to concentrate on lobbying (although I don’t personally see that as his strength) or how about an ambassadorship to someplace cushy like Monaco, Lol?
Since HugoBoss doesn’t employ plus-sized models, he may have to stay in the realm of policy.
Riker
@Abirdwillingtobeitself: Except that they don’t actually play much of a role in anything. They’re constantly telling us to sit down and shut up, but then when we ignore them and agitate and get things done, they’re ready to swoop in and take credit.
Case in point, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. HRC spokescritters told us not to push our luck and agitate for repeal. We told them to shove off and filed lawsuits and handcuffed ourselves to the White House and made dresses out of meat. When Congress finally voted to repeal DADT, guess who was there on the platform at the Capitol giving a press conference? That’s right, Super Joe Solmonese, the same guy who told us not to try and get it repealed.
He’s similarly rebuked people behind Perry v. Schwartzenegger and Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, which are major legal victories for us.
If we obtain equality under the law, then what happens to their jobs when they are no longer needed? It is in their interests to make the fight go as slowly as possible.
iDavid
I think there is a general lack of political understanding here. Divide and conquer has many ways of dealing hands. If HRC and the gay public are the two factions playing push pull, the opposing strategies seem to be working, and may have been strategically planned out unbeknownst to the general public. The bottom line is, HRC is a major player in sopport of gay rights, not to be discredited without all the facts of which we may never know.
TxHeat
I for one sure hope HRC doesn’t take a radical T turn. We owe so much to HRC and President Obama. I think any Gay person that votes against Obama will have the blood of future generations of young Gays on there hands, and I hope they spend the rest of there days suffering in torment as they are lower then the worst religious nut jobs.
Riker
@TxHeat: Nice, so anyone who disagrees with how Democrats handle the economy are now responsible for GLB deaths. Hyperbole much?
Cam
@Abirdwillingtobeitself: said…
“”I think the comments here are unnecessarily strong, and I would ask Daniel not to stoke the fires by questioning the relevance of the Human Rights Campaign. Whether the HRC president does a good job or a bad job, what he says and does remains relevant. He takes action and he sets a tone for reform, which makes other organizations take notice and follow his lead.””
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What a world you have created. In your world nobody is supposed to question the relevance of an organization that is taking 50 million dollars a year in donations from the community. With that money, you are stating that whether they do a good or bad job isn’t the issue.
So in your world, gays around the country are donating money to an organization that is claiming to be fighting for their rights and yet nobody should question what it is doing and whether or not it does a good job is irrelevant as is the fact that hard earned gay dollars are paying an over-sized salary to the man in charge.
Wow, do you actually read what you write? Do you actually see that you are stating that HRC can abdicate all responsibility to the community and just take money without being even asked to show results? Just a guess here…you’re one of the many people working for them making over 6 figures and not being asked to show any results aren’t you?
Abel
@Cam nails it in both his comments. Back up and read them if you haven’t.
ewe
Today is August 28, 2011. Does anyone know whether or not the Bummer has evolved yet?
brian
If Joe takes a job with the Administration, HRC should conduct an internal ethics investigation as to whether Joe let his independence be compromised through a conflict of interest. The political patronage job would certainly explain why he tip-toed through the tulips with Obama for two years while our agenda went down the memory hole.
Thomas Johnson
Oh my god. Some of you are so bitter and nasty. Based on your comments, you are getting what you want. Joe is stepping down as President of the Human Rights Campaign. Take your crazy train and move on to the next target.
Don’t worry about Joe’s next job, it is none of your fucking business. And @xzander…Joe has a 30″ waist and 11% body fat. He can probably hop, skip, jump or run circles around your sorry ass.
Oh, and his Hugo Boss Tux fits great.
Jack E. Jett
I will be taking his place. There is a Baked Chicken Charity Dinner at my house next weekend. For $2,500, you can Chicken, Del Monte Green Beans, Iceberg Lettuce with Cucumber. Donations will go to cover my account at The Four Seasons. Oh and Elvira may be there.
iDavid
William Levy and I will be there in full support Jack. It was a bit of a tough sell to William but when he heard the Elvira part, well I’ll put it to you this way, we want good seats. Hopefully the champagne will be Dom again. Remember, no skimping. Cya there.
Bertram
There’s a place for lobbying, no doubt. But HRC is not on the forefront of anything, least of all in the that sphere. They wait for the wave to overtake them and then they jump on the bandwagon as if it was their idea all along. Such is the case with marriage equality, where Gavin Newsom was a grand stander, and civil unions were all we could beg for… because that’s what the polls showed. They don’t want to shake up the status quo too much, for fear that they might be labeled a radical organization. They would have told Rosa Parks to get the hell up and stop making trouble.
Don Gaudard
@Abirdwillingtobeitself: You’ve got to be joking!! First, we have Obama-bots, and now we have a Joe S bot. HRC goes in and takes over what grass-roots organizations have done and then they take all the credit for it.
adams morgan
Tom Johnson is pathetic…like he knows Joe’s stats (if he does, it juts proves what a waste of space Joe is–discussing his stats with acquaintances). Whenever there’s a thread that rightfully points out the incompetence of HRC, Thomas Johnson always rears his head. People like him obviously get off on the galas and banquets, but whenever there is real work to be done HRC is silent. That’s a problem whether Tom wants to admit it or not.
Also, Joe is not fat…but I would love to see the resulting meltdown if someone said that to his face. The guy is a grade-A narcissist.
Continuum
The Joe’s HRC gave great cocktail parties, sent out nifty equality stickers and not much else.
It took the likes of GetEqual and Lt Chou to actually force some action.
Joe should take care not to let the door hit him in the butt when he leaves.
Queer Supremacist
Good riddance to bad Obots.
And those stickers are gauche. I roll my eyes every time I see one. I have gotten very good at doing so without swerving in my car. Furthermore, I consider equality with heterosexuals to be lowering ourselves to their level.
Cam
@Thomas Johnson: said…
“Oh my god. Some of you are so bitter and nasty. Based on your comments, you are getting what you want. Joe is stepping down as President of the Human Rights Campaign. Take your crazy train and move on to the next target.
Don’t worry about Joe’s next job, it is none of your fucking business. And @xzander…Joe has a 30? waist and 11% body fat. He can probably hop, skip, jump or run circles around your sorry ass.
Oh, and his Hugo Boss Tux fits great.”
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1. Actually if he manipulated the actions of a non profit gathering 50 million a year on gay dollars promising to fight for our rights in return for a high paying job, then yes, it is absolutely everybody’s business.
2. You know his waist size, body fat etc…. This obviously means you are close to him. So thank you for showing everybody…in this time of evolving gay rights, what is REALLY important to Joe. How wonderful for him that he is obsessed with his body fat percentage rather than gay rights.
Thomas Johnson
🙂
slanty
@Cam: Uh, I’m pretty sure Joe has never talked about his size.
Cam
@slanty: said…
@Cam: Uh, I’m pretty sure Joe has never talked about his size.
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Well you have two choices. Either, Thomas Johnson, who is on here defending him is a liar. Or he isn’t a liar, knows Joe and Joe has obviously been talking up a storm about them for him to be able to pull those numbers out of his ass in a posting on here.