Programs
The Human Rights Campaign's priorities include: prevention of hate crimes and HIV/AIDS; advocacy for healthcare benefits, marriage, and adoption rights for same-sex couples; lobbying for a federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and gender identity anti-discrimination laws; combating gay bashing in schools; and building relationships with straight allies, ethnic groups, religious leaders, and youth.
The HRC Foundation provides educational resources and publications on coming out, transgender issues, LGBT-related healthcare topics and information about workplace issues faced by LGBT people, notably the Corporate Equality Index. It also maintains resources on LGBT parenting, religion and faith issues, immigration, and outreach for youth.
The HRC Foundation’s Coming Out Project provides information to people who are in the process of coming out.
HRC lobbies for anti-discrimination, hate crimes laws, and worked on the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded federal hate-crime law to allow the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Referring to the law as a “historic milestone,” former HRC President Joe Solmonese said its passage represents “the first time that we as a nation have explicitly protected the LGBT community in the law.”
The organization's work on health issues traditionally focused on responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In recent years, HRC has addressed discrimination in health care settings for LGBT employees, patients and their families. Since 2007, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation has published the "Healthcare Equality Index", which rates hospitals on issues such as patient and employee non-discrimination policies, employee cultural competency training, and hospital visitation rights for LGBT patients' families. Lobbyists from the Human Rights Campaign worked with the Obama administration to extend hospital visitation rights to same-sex partners.
HRC lobbied extensively for the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) law, which barred gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States military. Eric Alva, a gay Marine who was the first American wounded in combat in Iraq, has since been a spokesman on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign's efforts to repeal the law, and was invited to stand behind President Obama at the signing ceremony.
In 2004, HRC spent $3.5 million on lobbying, its largest one-year expenditure. That year, the organization worked to prevent an amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would have limited marriage to unions of one man and one woman, and prevented judicial extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples. It typically spends over $1 million per year on lobbying, ranking among the biggest spenders on lobbying for human rights.
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Famous quotes containing the word programs:
“Although good early childhood programs can benefit all children, they are not a quick fix for all of society’s ills—from crime in the streets to adolescent pregnancy, from school failure to unemployment. We must emphasize that good quality early childhood programs can help change the social and educational outcomes for many children, but they are not a panacea; they cannot ameliorate the effects of all harmful social and psychological environments.”
—Barbara Bowman (20th century)
“There is a delicate balance of putting yourself last and not being a doormat and thinking of yourself first and not coming off as selfish, arrogant, or bossy. We spend the majority of our lives attempting to perfect this balance. When we are successful, we have many close, healthy relationships. When we are unsuccessful, we suffer the natural consequences of damaged and sometimes broken relationships. Children are just beginning their journey on this important life lesson.”
—Cindy L. Teachey. “Building Lifelong Relationships—School Age Programs at Work,” Child Care Exchange (January 1994)
“Government ... thought [it] could transform the country through massive national programs, but often the programs did not work. Too often they only made things worse. In our rush to accomplish great deeds quickly, we trampled on sound principles of restraint and endangered the rights of individuals.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)