The LGBT news wrap up for January 23, 2016
Up this week: HRC endorses Hillary and the backlash. The Stonewall Workplace Equality Index releases rankings. And the Israeli controversy at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference.
First, HRC endorses HRC. Which is to say that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) for president this week. Well HRC may love HRC (cute, huh?), but the Human Rights Campaign suffered a lot of backlash. And it wasn’t because they didn’t endorse a Republican candidate. In fact, the Human Rights Campaign noted that none of the GOP candidates even bothered to respond to its questionnaire. Naturally, it was Bernie Sanders supporters who were most irate. I mean, really, Sanders was one of only a few legislators to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Opinion writer Ken Schneck opined on HuffPost: “HRC missed a real opportunity here. … To ignore one candidate in his entirety at this point in the process? That unnecessary. To imply that this endorsement was based on anything LGBTQ? That was disingenuous.”
This week Britain’s Stonewall released its Workplace Equality Index, ranking the top 100 organizations for LGBT inclusion. Star performers include those with a large US presence like Accenture, IBM, EY, Barclays. What’s really interesting is who took first place in this year’s ranking, which is an organization that by definition can’t exist in the U.S. It’s M15, which is a governmental organization that protects the UK from national security threats, often works with US entities like the NSA, FBI, and CIA. “Much of Mi5’s work keeping the country safe goes on by necessity out of view,” said Andrew Parker, Director General of Mi5, in accepting the honor, “so i’m delighted we can be publicly recognised as such an inclusive and welcoming place to work, … Diversity is vital for Mi5, not just because it’s right that we represent the communities we serve, but because we rely on the skills of the most talented people whoever they are, and wherever they may be.” Bloody good and nicely played!
Last but not least is the National LGBTQ Task Force’s odd controversy over inviting, then disinviting, then re-inviting an Isreali LGBT group to its Creating Change conference. The disinvite for A Wider Bridge came after objections by those who felt that promoting Israel’s pro-gay policies was ‘pink-washing’ its controversial Palestinian policies. The re-invite came after gay and Jewish US Congressman Jared Polis released a statement saying: “Especially in the wake of the violence at last year’s Jerusalem Pride, it’s important to hear voices from the LGBTQ advocacy community from Israel and other nations in the Middle East. In Israel, … A Wider Bridge played an important healing role. I hope that The Task Force reconsiders.” A more vociferous objection came from a civil rights attorney, Jillian Weiss, who wrote: “I’m all for decrying Israeli government violence. But you can’t paint all Israelis with that brush, and kicking out this group makes even less sense. If you’re going to kick out people whose governments killed lots of Arab civilians, you should at least kick out the Americans.”
Ouch!
And, that, I think, is a wrap for This Queer Week!
