The Human Rights
Campaign announced in November 2013 a new global initiative, but Laura Belmonte and
Tanya Domi raise questions about the priorities and expertise of America’s
largest domestic LGBT organization to engage internationally
Last November, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) launched a new $3
million international campaign that has generated both cautious optimism and
scathing criticism from those involved in the global struggle for LGBT
equality. Both responses are well-founded and the bar is set high for HRC to
distinguish itself in an arena long ago claimed by other advocates.
HRC’s
announcement this week of a $100,000 contribution to support the Russian LGBT
movement is a serious
illustration of its commitment to this new venture into international affairs.
Madonna, Ricky Martin, Dustin Lance Black and Gavin Newsome, the Lt. Governor
of California, are among the 63 donors. The organization’s ability to
raise substantial sums of money and to promote such efforts with celebrities
situated front and center is one of HRC’s greatest strengths (see celebrity supporters).
HRC
unquestionably has money (nearly $39 million in gross
receipts in 2012), expertise and connections in U.S. politics and media that
could prove invaluable in gaining attention for LGBT issues abroad. If HRC is
willing to connect grass roots activists with public officials, corporate
leaders, and media outlets that help them make their cases and to provide them
with additional resources or training like their new global fellows program,
kudos to them.
But
that’s a big if.
With many more hurdles to
overcome domestically, is going international now the right strategic move, or
is this HRC hedging its bets and paying it forward to position the organization
for a different kind of future, when ENDA, marriage equality and civil rights
have been secured in a vast majority of states in America? Are the aims of Chad
Griffin, who assumed the presidency of HRC in 2012, really different from those
of his predecessor Joe Solmonese, whose seven- year tenure was punctuated by
allegations that he raised a great deal of money, but pursued an agenda with
little substance?
In
its first move toward international engagement, right out of the starting
blocks, HRC was taken to task for accepting funding for this initiative from Paul Singer,
a venture capitalist who has profited from the economic distress of developing
nations. Pointing out the devastating effects of poverty on LGBT people in
impoverished nations, Wanja Muguongo, head of UHAI –the East African Sexual
Health and Rights Initiative – told BuzzFeed, “You
cannot hurt with one hand and say you’re helping with another. It is not money
that should be used by anyone for LGBTI work any side of the world. It’s an
insult.”
No matter how
well-executed, the HRC initiative inevitably will generate suspicion among
foreign activists. From Protestant missionary organizations to public health
workers to modernization programs like the Alliance for Progress, there is a
long history of U.S. humanitarian intervention that has veered into
imperialism. While HRC may not see this initiative through such a lens, many of
those abroad will.
As domestic activists of
many years, we are familiar with the HRC mode of operation: From Maryland to
Hawaii, HRC has been rightfully accused of “bigfooting” local activists, icing
out those who are considered experts and running roughshod over people who have
toiled away for years, often ignored with little or no support, only to be
pushed aside when victory is at hand. HRC classically swoops in, grabs the
reins of a struggle and claims another victory, but in the process causes hurt
feelings and resentments that have plagued the organization for years.
A
recent case illustrating our point occurred when HRC staff members excoriated a transgender activist who was holding a transgender freedom
flag behind the rally stage in front of the U.S. Supreme Court last March
during Defense of Marriage Act oral arguments. The staff member repeatedly told
the transgender activist that marriage equality was not a transgender issue.
Although HRC eventually issued an apology, staff members who were managing the
stage committed another faux pas by telling an undocumented LGBT activist who
was scheduled to speak at the rally, to remain silent about his immigration
status. Not willing to accept HRC’s heavy-handed treatment, United We Dream’s
Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project issued a video press release condemning
HRC’s actions and demanded an apology.
If HRC is this
insensitive with transgender and immigrant queers at home, how will they behave
abroad, among people who likely speak different languages, have different
values, different priorities, and their own ideas about how to advance LGBTI
equality in their own countries?
How will they address the
“Intersex” political identification which is excluded in America for all
practical purposes, but commonly addressed in Europe and other regions of the
world?
Indeed, HRC’s entry into
international human rights advocacy is quite late and there are many
international and national LGBTI groups who have been working for years on
these issues, with tremendous experience and expertise. Among them include,
Freedom House, The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the more recent and quite effective
Council on Global Equality, which HRC financially supports.
International activists are
raising concerns about whether HRC will remove more funding than it invests in
the nations where they seek to advance LGBT equality. Given the tensions among
HRC and state and local activists who have experienced this vacuum effect for
years, such anxieties are understandable.
Look
no further than the new “Love Conquers Hate” t-shirt campaign HRC is promoting
as a means of helping LGBT activists in Russia. Jamie Lee Curtis and others
sport the t-shirt in a gesture of solidarity. But one cannot actually buy the t-shirt whose proceeds benefit
those working for LGBT equality in Russia without also giving a donation to HRC.
And more to the point, in
the case of Russia, where xenophobia is alarmingly accentuated due to the
onerous crackdown against the LGBT community by the Putin regime, love between
same-sex partners can barely exist, let alone conquer hatred and violence. Such
simplistic campaign slogans fall dreadfully short of addressing daily questions
of life and death that now confront Russian gays.
It is precisely this type
of celebrity-laden self-promotion and resource domination that sends HRC’s
fiercest detractors into fits of sputtering rage and opens it up charges of
exploitation (or dismissal for a lack of understanding about what is actually
happening in Russia for the gay community).
HRC
should play to their strengths and continue its financial support to the newly
launched Russian
Freedom Fund. They should assist groups like RUSA LGBT, Russians
working from New York and even consider funding an asylum resettling project
for those Russians who will no doubt be seeking a better life in America, but
leave it this work to the groups who have worked on international LGBT human
rights for decades.
For such reasons, we pose
several questions about HRC’s global initiative.
Will HRC actually
collaborate with other organizations with much deeper expertise in foreign
relations, international human rights, and development? Will this initiative
simply export U.S. hegemonic aims, including white privilege and classicism that
has undercut many a domestic HRC program? Is HRC cognizant that this global
campaign sends an implicit “Game’s over at Home” message to activists in 29 states
still working for hate crimes law and protections against employment and
housing discrimination? Isn’t it premature to declare victory and go searching
for international battles before passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination
Act and marriage equality in all 50 states?
The fate of many literally
risking their lives for LGBT equality abroad hinges on how HRC and all of us
who want freedom for LGBTI people everywhere answer these questions.
Image: HRC Love Conquers
Hate Russian T-Shirt via HRC
The original version of this article was published by The New Civil Rights Movement on December 21, 2013
Laura Belmonte
is Professor of history at Oklahoma State University and serves on the national
council for the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR).
