Tweet
The story of how GLAAD took AT&T money, then sent an AT&T-written form letter to the FCC on their behalf, just keeps getting more and more sordid. Central to the saga appears to be former AT&T lobbyist Troup Coronado, who sits on the board of GLAAD. But for the life of me, I cannot understand how either GLAAD or any of the other LGTB boards that Coronado sits on could possibly justify his presence there.
Coronado was appointed to the GLAAD board in 2008. If you look at his bio, you’ll see a lot of information about Coronado’s involved with numerous LGTB and Hispanic causes. Not so much about his work with an organization called the Hispanic Alliance for Progress Institute (HAPI), where Coronado sat on the Policy Board. The Policy Board.
According to People for the American Way, HAPI was an astroturf group that joined with other GOP outfits to form the ”National Coalition To End Judicial Filibusters,” which supported the use of “the so-called ‘nuclear option” to eliminate Senator’s ability to filibuster against President George W. Bush’s right-wing judicial nominees.”
Think about that. After the 2004 election, George Bush wanted to jam 10 extreme right-wing judges onto the bench who had been filibustered by the Democrats in the Senate: Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owen, Charles W. Pickering, Carolyn Kuhl, David W. McKeague, Henry Saad,Richard Allen Griffin, William H. Pryor, William Gerry Myers III and Janice Rogers Brown. Troup Coronado played an affirmative role in helping him do that.
The Gang of 14 cut the deal with the GOP over the nuclear option, which put seven of these judges onto the bench. Janice Rogers Brown, the only California Supreme Court justice to rule against recognizing LGBT rights to legally adopt their children, saying it “trivializes family bonds.” Pryor, who cast the deciding vote to uphold Florida’s outright ban on gay adoption.
Now, I know why Coronado was part of the effort. Bellsouth, AIG and BofA were “corporate members” of the group, and the Chamber was in a no-holds barred war to get Bush’s corporate-friendly judges onto the bench. But for any LGBT group, the bottom line should have been that when LGTB rights were pitted against corporate rights, Coronado was willing to give a group of people with seriously homophobic judicial histories enormous power to determine the future of lives of people within the LGTB community.
It’s inconceivable that any group conducting due diligence about a potential member of their board could have possibly missed this. But it’s not just GLAAD: Equality California, AIDS Project Los Angeles, the Richmond Ermet AIDS Foundation and the Gay Men’s Chorus of LA all have Coronado on their boards. As does the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce.
I understand that organizations need money to pay staff, to do their work. And it’s possible to be a corporate jerk and still care about LGTB rights. But it is inconceivable that anyone could justify placing the future of an organization into the hands of a board member who has demonstrated incontrovertibly that he will sacrifice its values when the Chamber snaps their fingers.
12 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
$ocial cla$$, it is what all the kool kid$ do.
rmm.
.
After fishing around a bit, I managed to dig out a pic of Coronado.
Corp donations to these kinds of orgs seems to be an easy & cheap way to get them to do the opposite of their alleged cause.
I want to support human rights for GLBT and intersex persons but the organizations that say they are proponents have donors with which I won’t deal with directly because I don’t like the politics of those donors. For example, I’m again looking through the donors of Basic Rights Education Fund that is running the Marriage Matters Oregon (notice the counter campaign looks just the same and is listed at the website, http://www.marriagematters.org, so you have to precisely type in the correct URL to get to the correct campaign) and their donor list for 2009 which includes Kaiser Permanente, Frito Lay and Key Bank. What the heck? How can the Basic Rights Education Fund not be just a sock puppet to Kaiser Permanente, Frito Lay and Key Bank– and AT&T for that matter– who don’t support something as super basic as healthcare as a human right? So instead, having AT&T, Kaiser Permanente, Frito Lay, and Key Bank show up on donor list regarding human rights for GLBT and intersex persons is just those corporations playing advertising games and trying to buy votes from GLBT and intersex persons. Folks following the money just don’t “buy” it.
Do these organizations vet their Board members, at all?
Or do they simply look at the gaywashed resumes from donor-provided stooges?
I am not surprised by any of this. Was he not the Director of the New Majority Program at The Heritage Foundation?
Really now, GLAAD and Heritage?
As a prominent example, for decades I have heard HRC criticized for turning a blind eye. So in essence the board members are vetted and their activities endorsed. Upon instances where I have discovered this in the past (and I’ve noticed that nothing has changed), I simply removed my donations and volunteer service from such organizations. I had to come to the conclusion that these organizations are joyful volunteers to the Veal Pen. So I don’t disagree with Liz Berry’s assessment here; the Veal Penners are just a variation on the myth of the US political party.
It’s just about the money.
It’s just business.
Nothing to see here, keep moving.
And as the “recession” continues, and less donations come in, expect more of these things to happen.
I mean, they had a LGBT rights’ group support AT+T against net neutrality. That’s bloody genius. Talk about attacking from the flanks … I mean who saw that coming.
You WILL see a lot more of this. Eventually the groups, like RI, will do whatever it takes merely to survive. This ain’t about getting rich. This is about their survival. And for their survival, they will turn against everything they “believed” in, just like RI.
If you can’t beat them, buy them.
Thank you Jane!! The truth is, progressive politics and principles couldn’t have taken the abrupt backslide they have, without a lot of “progressive” lobby/thinktank/nonprofits forgetting their principles when there’s ca$h involved. And as someone who doesn’t follow all this stuff down to the penny, I appreciate your shining a light on the “veal pen” groups and calling them out so we all can see what they’re really up to. Thanks!
With respect to the latter question: Apparently, that gets a big “Umm, Yeah”. Nice.
And then you have Sam Stein proclaiming “Obama’s Relationship With Gay Rights Advocates Thaws In Time For 2012″ with this telling part from the propaganda:”Deal-sealing would be a boon to the President’s reelection campaign, which has strategically eyed gay rights advocates as lucrative sources of campaign funds.”
Mr. President, we know what you are. Now what’s your price?
It’s class war, and this is the kabuki theater of operations. The only thing that matters is the profits of Corporate America and the wealthy. By co-opting the leadership of these “progressive” veal pen organizations (NARAL immediately comes to mind) TPTB appear to channel the energy (and money) of true believer activists into harmless activity that fails to threaten the status quo. The cherry on top is that they get the rubes, eh “volunteers”, to believe they’re actually making a difference. Problem for these MOTU is that Obama played his hand too aggressively against the Left and exposed the whole system as crooked as a game of three card monte.