Raymond Buckley, the openly gay chair of New Hampshire’s state Democratic party, is calling for the president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, to resign. HRC President Alphonso David allegedly played a role in discrediting one of the accuser’s in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment case that led to Cuomo’s own resignation yesterday.
According to Manchester, NH-based WMUR-TV 9:
Buckley tweeted that Alphonso David, former chief counsel to Cuomo, should step aside as president of the Human Rights Campaign after a report commissioned by the New York Attorney General, released last week, concluded that Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 female state employees. …
David was mentioned prominently in the report, which stated that after he left the governor’s office, he had a role in efforts to discredit a former Cuomo adviser who accused the governor of sexual misconduct.
The Human Rights Campaign on Monday announced that it was launching an internal investigation by an outside law firm into David and his inclusion in the Cuomo sexual harassment case.
“Over the past several days, HRC’s employees, supporters, board members and partners have raised questions about the appropriateness of Alphonso David’s actions and whether they align with HRC’s decades’ long mission of fighting for equality and justice for all,” the HRC said in a statement.
The New York Attorney General’s report also mentioned that attorney Roberta Kaplan, chair of Time’s Up, an advocacy group for survivors of sexual harassment and abuse, advised Cuomo when the former special adviser to Cuomo, Lindsey Boylan, accused the governor of sexual harassment last year.
Kaplan resigned from her Time’s Up role on Monday.
Buckley retweeted a report on Kaplan’s resignation and added in his own tweeted comment, “Time for @HRC’s @AlphonsoDavid to follow.”
The party chair said he has been a member of the Human Rights Campaign since 1982 and said he has worked with the HRC on many issues and elections over the past several decades. Buckley was the first openly gay vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.
He was elected to an eighth term as NHDP chair in March.
“It is deeply troubling that these individuals would sully their reputations by being involved in an activity of going after a victim,” Buckley said Monday. “That is never right.”
He noted that the symbol of the Human Rights Campaign is an equal sign and that the group, while focusing on LGBTQ rights, stands for equality for all, including women.
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