HRC? The place that spends more on it's fancy offices in DC than they do fighting for the rights of LGBTQ Americans? Seriously Matt...do some fucking research of the HRC and you can probably figure out why

I think that answers your question.

HRC earned my scorn a long time ago by bending over backward to kiss up to Republicans. They will regret this outrage when Sanders wins.

Because Hils can be bought off, but Bernie can't

HRC is the worst. They suck more money out of the gay community and provide the least benefit for all their largesse. They have a bloated swanky office in DC, a bloated and grossly overpaid staff, and they do shit all for the money they're swimming in. They have been willing to throw trans people under the bus to get LGB(but not T) rights passed. They opposed any support for gay marriage until well after Hillary had her change of heart. They are the most useless gay rights organization in the country. The only thing they are good at is raising money from the A-gays.

I suppose simply by being gay, being part of the group most discriminated against in the country, means we are by definition not establishment. But the HRC is about as close to establishment as any LGB(sometimes T) organization can be. So Bernie's accusation isn't completely off base.

When is HRC hosting their next $300 plus a person fundraising event here in Seattle? If you want to meet Seattle's Log Cabin Republican types (who tend to work in the tech industry) that's the place to meet them.

I'm sorry...last year the tickets were very reasonable at $275 per person....

Maybe it's because they have same initials.

I stopped giving money to the HRC a decade ago over their support for RepubliKKKans and track record of ignoring state and local issues until after they've gone down in flames.

HILLARY was against LGBT rights until long after focus groups gave her the green light to be for them, so this endorsement of political expediency is hardly a reward for courageous leadership.

This was confusing to read because Human Rights Campaign has the same initials as Hillary Rodham Clinton

Amazing, I wouldn't have thought this but in a matchup of Sanders vs. Trump, Real Clear Politics has Sanders ahead, 46.8% to 41.5% by a winder margin than Trump vs. Clinton.

See Matt, this is why you do more research than reading the boilerplate put out by the HRC before posting an article.

@12: That's been true for a while. Hillary is less electable than Sanders, because many more people dislike her. That may change if Bernie makes a few more slips like he did in calling PP and HRC "the establishment", but I doubt it could shift that much.

@Matt: I remember your early videos on prop8trialtracker.com, they were good. Just as a way of saying I've been a fan for a while ;) I was very excited when you started here on Slog.

Maybe because a rabble-rousing bloviator isn't as effective as a skilled politician at addressing international rights issues?

Like, I get that people connect with Bernie's passion and shit, but I don't have a ton of faith in him getting the right people at the table to affect any change.

As if it were news that many large advocacy organizations, unions, etc have been captured by an entrenched, treacherous liberal class that will try to preserve the status quo.

@15, And Clinton will? At best, she's the candidate of the status quo.
Bernie is speaking the truth about our toxic political and economic systems, while also proposing meaningful changes that would greatly improve people's lives. Clinton offers the bitter pill of more of the same.

@15, you're right to have no faith in Sanders getting "the right people to affect any change." That's because the president doesn't pick the people who affect any change. Those people are elected to congress, state houses, county and city councils, and other unglamourous, never thought about until they piss somebody off, offices.

People, if you want change, quit staying home every fucking Election Day that doesn't involve the presidency. Give us good candidates in November by voting in the primaries. Stop regarding the president as the only one who decides our political fate.

I will give Clinton this: she probably does have better leadership skills than Sanders, but where will she lead us? I think she'll lead us to the center, where her husband and the DNC establishment have led us. We've been there, and we have a disastrous, costly, and unjust war and a still out of control Wall Street to show for it.

Feel the Bern!

I'm a former HRC Federal Club Council member, that got tired of them spending $1000s annually to retain my membership through wining and dining. Lobbyists are the problem in WaDC, even if they are lobbying for things I agree with.

The notion that the HRC should use its endorsements to punish or reward past behavior is silly. There are entirely plausible reasons to endorse Clinton for forward looking reasons; that is, to believe she'll be a more effective advocate going forward. Nursing grudges is generally bad politics for interest groups and social movements.

@15
Change is not going to happen at any table in DC. I think the real strength of a Sanders Presidency would be if he simply continued to keep his volunteers super engaged, but on local issues they might actually win rather than work in DC. DC doesn't work anymore. No one wins there. Local politics is where change is happening, and the president bringing his spotlight to local issues could really help a lot of people. Also, it could help reverse the gerrymandering and rigging the system that is the monkey wrench in the DC political machine.

Obama made the mistake of activating the base, then sending them home once he got elected. He tried to take on DC and fought to a draw. Keeping those folks involved and engaged could have lead to much better outcomes at the local and state level.

A friend of mine summed it up succinctly: The Human Rights Campaign is a completely useless organization that takes money intended to help gay rights and uses it instead to pay for fancy cocktail parties for DC insiders who can already afford to buy their own cosmos. It sells bumper stickers and tote bags and that's pretty much it. When it bothers to do anything more than move merch, it has been tactically and morally wrong every damn time: gay marriage (not now, let's focus on ENDA!), ENDA (we'll get it one of these days!), transgender rights (no, they're embarrassing!). It postures as an outside agitator but functions as a consummate insider. It's a total Heather.

@15 Wtf. Bernie can't cause change? How about the fact that he was the leading congressional force in passing VA reform, which is one of the few new pieces of legislation since republicans gained majority in the house.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sena…

Yes, It's all about Human Rights. Like when the HRC honored Raytheon. http://www.raytheon.com/news/feature/rtn… or Monsanto http://news.monsanto.com/press-release/c… and of course, Goldman Sachs http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-bea…

What is it with that crazy old dude Sanders calling them part of the establishment.

@18: I'm basically a centrist, or at least I would be if the so-called center hadn't been yanked so far to the right over the last couple of decades. By my standards, Clinton is a normal, civilized right-winger and the leading Republicans are screaming fascist lunatics.

Bernie stands for, by historical standards, very middle-of-the-road, pro-middle-class policies. He hasn't proposed anything that wasn't something mainstream 50 years ago. He can call himself a democratic socialist, a socialist, or a fucking commie for all I care, but let's face it, he's barely left of center. He wants to bring back business regulations that we used to have under Republican administrations that protected business and banking from itself and consumers from the excesses of both. How is that radical? He wants to bring the minimum wage back to where it would have been if they hadn't fucking removed the indexing for inflation during Reagan's term. How is that radical? He looks to restoring a gradually progressive income tax, which had 25 steps terminating at 91% during Eisenhower's term -- and, he hasn't suggested even half of that. In 1946, 90% of the adult men were eligible for the GI Bill of Rights. They got free college, free job training, free health care, cheap mortgages, and it made the '50s boom. When I was in public school, we got free vaccinations, federally-subsidized meals and school budgets courtesy of the Cold War and the Space Race. Bernie is nowhere near that socialistic. He just wants to inch us back towards a formula that created the biggest boom in the middle class this country ever had.

He's the actual candidate that wants to make America great again.

@26: I was going to say some other things, but you said them better than I would.

Brava. Stop voting for the lesser of evils and vote for actual change!

@27, You're welcome. But, I'm going to take issue with "stop voting for the lesser of two evils."

If you are interested in your future and the future of your country, you have to stand up and be an adult. This frequently involves admitting that you can't have an ice cream cone, a pony, and a bag of candy, and instead you're just going to have to hold your nose and vote for the least horrible candidate. Failure to do so may result in the most horrible candidate getting elected, and yes, that will be all your own damned fault.

Whoever the Democratic nominee for President is going to be, go vote for her or him. Unless you are looking forward to living in some fascist, theocratic hellhole of a third world country, do not let whichever Republican martinet bubbles to the top of that cesspit grab the reins of power by default.

@29 the Democrats slow our process of getting to that hell hole..the GOP just makes it faster

@29: But that theory has led us here. At some point we have to test it. Otherwise we continue the trip as the Rs run the Overton window to the right.

HRC is a sham and the sooner that gays realize this the better.

@31: We did test it, in 2000, with Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket. All it did was help us get Bush. Would Gore have been better? Maybe, maybe not, but he sure as shit wouldn't have chosen Cheney for his veep, nor any of those other chicken hawks in Bush's administration. And maybe he'd have paid attention to the Bin Laden memos, what with not having Cheney's hard on to annex Iraq's oil or looking for any chance to play "rope-a-dope" to do it. Fuck yes, he would have been better, and we'd be living in a less horrible world right now with less horrible economic circumstances for a lot of people.

It's just a question of what it means to be a member of the Democratic political establishment. Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign both fit this bill: their leadership is part of the privileged, cloistered quid-pro-quo class that populates Washington, DC. They're lobbyists and horse-traders, and they're effective insofar as they're willing to play by the rules of the broken system that's destroying our democracy.

The Human Rights Campaign is just a bunch of rich white people doing what rich white people do best: selling out. They heap praise on Goldman Sachs even as they throw transgendered people under the bus on antidiscrimination laws. They host fancy galas in the capital even as they decline to put resources into initiatives like Prop 8 in California. Their willingness to support Hillary over Bernie despite the huge gulf between their records is par for the course.

I used to make fun of my hetero ex-roommate for having an HRC bumper sticker. That was in 2011.

What have they accomplished? Nothing. The biggest steps in progress at the federal level has been mandated by the courts. HRC is a joke on the level of the Mattachine Society.

I'm not surprised you stand up for them, Matt.

@34 HRC is a lobbying and organizing organization. Planned Parenthood is primarily a direct provider of reproductive and other health services to women and families. Only 15% of their spending goes toward non-medical services such as sex education and public policy work.

If you aren't just repeating GOP talking points, I think you will find it very interesting to learn more about PP and their history.

@33: Hm. I agreed at the time and voted for Gore (though I lived in MA so it didn't matter), and he probably would've been better, but when we get to the point where

Stop it. Bernie Sanders was for state's rights regarding marriage in 2006:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGK7N7S_…