Human Rights Campaign Gala Dinner

September 13th, 2008
Minneapolis Convention Center

Although there were many sponsors, the most notable are those “Local Sponsors” that earned a 100% rating on the 2009 Corporate Equality Index:
3M, Carlson Hotels, Faegre & Benson LLP, Supervalu, Accenture, Deloitte, Merrill Lynch, Target, Cargill, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, RKM&C LLP, and Wells Fargo.

This was my fourth time attending the HRC Gala dinner. The Human Rights Campaign works on equality for GLBT folks nationally and uses these dinners as donor events.

Their current initiatives deal with amplifying voices of faith, supporting GLBT patriots, combating discrimination, advancing legislation, mobilizing the GLBT community, and electing fair-minded leaders. This year’s dinner had an exceptionally strong political tone as the “Year to Win” campaign borrowed heavily from Obama’s “change” platform.

Those who spoke at the event included HRC President Joe Solmonese; he has become an increasingly public face for the organization, which champions “angelic troublemakers”. He has appeared on prime-time television with prominent interviewers — to raise awareness for GLBT issues. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken also spoke to voice their support for the democratic campaign.

Ms. Klobuchar charged the audience by telling [the republicans] to “Read My Lipstick!”. As this event was meant as much to entertain as to raise funds — I found this to be a call out for the women in the audience who have seen this election drop Mrs. Clinton and focus back towards the men.

Another issue I recognized was that both of the politicians addressing the guests were known for their comedy — it reminded me of how many people of color are not taken seriously day-to-day, and how we are often forced to enter the mainstream through entertainment rather than intellectualism or accomplishment.

Furthermore, it was overwhelmingly clear that HRC depends more heavily on large contributions (through what is called “The Federal Club”) than on small donations — this led me to wonder how this high-value sponsorship model skews the priorities of the HRC way from the ‘average’ income GLBT person. It does not take a long time to realize that priorities can change radically with income increases — but how else is a national organization to gain enough support to challenge the establishment? With that said, HRC does to a phenomenal job at fundraising — they are constantly sending emails, calling around holidays, and soliciting where GLBT folk hang out. At least someone’s doing something!

Overall, I had a really great time dining and listening to hundreds of my community members — to see such a large crowd, nicely dressed, and Know that you are “In” — was well worth my time. As was said during the dinner, a strong community must be created so that we can pool together our energies to combat institutional inequality... the only problem I saw was the polarization political parties, dems = good / republicans = bad. There are gay republicans: The Log Cabin Republicans; community cannot be both exclusionary and effective at the same time.

One more interesting thing that happened was that one of the award recipients did not provide personnel to accept their award at the dinner -- I think it would be safe to say that few others knew the significance of the absence of an acceptance speech -- this organization's leaders were calling for more open recognition of the "T" in GLBT. Recently, work on passing non-discrimination legislation saw the exclusion of transgender folk. Like Leslie Feinberg pointed out in our readings -- the transgender warriors in our communities broaden everyone's possibilities -- and they will continue to fight to be included.

Thanks for reading.