Positive Liberty

The Human Rights Campaign has been a deep disappointment to me on many levels.

Scott and I have been members of the group on and off for several years, drawn to it by our support for their stated goals and yet often quite frustrated. I don’t mean to dump on them, like some will do, in the name of gay rights purity, or for lack of true-blue progressive credentials, or for failing to take stands on issues that may or may not be related to its core mission — like abortion. I’m probably the last person in the world who could throw that kind of a stone.

To put it simply, HRC’s membership policies are too friendly to the closet — and not friendly enough to gay and lesbian families. Substantive disagreements aside (I can’t abide hate crimes laws), Scott and I thought for a very long time that, on balance, it sent a good message to belong to the group. We don’t think so anymore.

Yes, we’d always known about the expensive events put on for the power elite; we knew about the new building, and how it was such a waste of money; we knew about the high administrative overhead. We could swallow hard and look past all that. A quick look around Washington shows that HRC really isn’t so different from a lot of other lobbying groups, and, regrettable as it may be, this is just the way things work here.

But some faults we can’t excuse.

First, whenever HRC calls us asking for money, signatures, volunteer effort, or what-have-you, they refuse to identify themselves by name. Not only do they avoid saying that they are a gay rights organization, they don’t even call themselves “The Human Rights Campaign” — a bland enough label if ever there was one. No, on the phone they are merely “a nonprofit organization.” That’s it. And, with one stunningly inept gesture, we’re back to the love that dare not speak its name.

Never mind that Scott and I are pretty much the only ones who ever answer our phone. Never mind that anyone else who might just happen to answer our phone is unlikely to have a heart attack on learning that it’s the Human Rights Campaign. Never mind that a telephone call from a certain… nonprofit organization has never been known to turn anyone gay. And never mind that they sometimes call straight people, too.

And then there’s the little matter of our “family” membership. Although HRC may be the nation’s largest gay and lesbian… nonprofit organization, they have never once contacted my husband and I as a family, using both of our names, as we have repeatedly asked them to do. It’s always one or the other, but never both — as though I were too squeamish to accept my own husband’s gayness.

It started several years ago, when Scott and I began giving to them through the Combined Federal Campaign. We asked for a family membership for the two of us, and they answered that this would be easy to do. We gave them both of our names and waited for the membership packet to arrive.

When it did, Scott’s name was the only one to appear. We called to complain, and they assured us that it would be corrected — which it never was. Repeated phone calls from both of us failed to resolve the problem.

When they phoned, they would always ask for Scott, never for me. Always, they would say that they were “a nonprofit organization” — but never disclose who they were. Because HRC is the only group who ever does this, I’d always know it was them. “I’m his partner,” I would answer, “and my name is on the membership, too. Could you speak to me instead?”

“No, we are calling for Scott Starin.”

So we terminated our so-called family membership. They’d still call from time to time, always being coy about who they were, until finally, a few weeks ago, we thought to give them another chance.

I explained on the phone that Scott and I had gotten legally married and that we were very happy that a group was standing up for families like ours. I gave the caller both of our names — spelling out both of them to make certain he got them right — and we waited, once again, for our information packet.

It arrived a few days later, addressed only to me, with Scott nowhere to be found. Mysteriously, their political mailings sometimes arrive addressed to “Scott and Jason Starin.”

Now this is amusing on many levels, not the least of which is that Scott wasn’t even the one who had signed up for the family membership this time around. I was; further, I had spelled my name out to them to avoid all confusion. (And they can’t have known this, but Scott also has a brother named Jason. While he certainly supports the cause, he just as certainly lives in North Carolina.)

The bottom line here is simple, though: HRC needs to change with the times. Their solicitation scripts sound like they were written in the awkward 1980s, and, if our experience is at all representative, their treatment of gay families dates from the same era. When it comes to politics, I’ll take what I can get, warts and all. But this stuff? I’d expect better from the Sears catalog.

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