Yesterday with the help of Todd Swindell and longtime gay activist and San Francisco District 8 Supervisor Candidate Michael Petrelis of The Petrelis Files;  Back2Stonewall.com was able to post the 2013 net earnings of Human Rights Campaign President and born a poor gay rural boy in Arkansas (until he was 19 and moved to Washington, D.C. to become a the youngest member of a Bill Clinton’s presidential staff working as White House Press Office Manager.) Chad “Rosa Parks” Griffin

After hearing the news Ken Kidd of the ever fantastic LGBT activist group Queer Nation shared out post and after dealing with someone who was attempting to softpeddle Griffin’s obscene $507,000.00 paycheck and the fact that after receiving donations of over 50 Million Dollars in 2013, that HRC spent a measley $650,000.00 of it on lobbying.

Kidd summed up nicely what many in the LGBT community are feeling after hearing the news of Griffin’s obscene paycheck.

“You can’t unring the bell and your comments above may now have clouded the issue for folks who are interested in this topic and learning what a money-suck HRC is to now be confused when there’s really no reason to be.  Moreover, this is not a ‘cry’ of scandal, and it is absolutely a fair statement. HRC’s sole mission is lobbying, yet they raise money on the backs of every other organization’s work. over causes to which they have contributed absolutely no effort whatever. And Chad’s over ONE HALF MILLION DOLLAR salary last year (which represents a $150,000.00 dollar raise for him over the year before– when his individual donors demanded that he cut his pay by nearly 20 grand from the year before that) is way out of line.

One need look at only two things:

(1) The salaries paid to other LGBT EDs, like Lorrie Jean of the LA LGBT Center, who is constantly having verbal skirmishes with Chad over which of their organizations is larger (and always wins on which one provides more actual service), and (2) the fact that HRC repeatedly refused to make public its most recent 990s and only did so under threat of legal action, then finally releasing the information at 6:30 PM on the Friday night of Labor Day weekend.

I really, truly have a problem with people trying to defend this top-heavy organization whose sole purpose at this point is fundraising to keep itself in business. Especially when they agree that HRC isn’t the best org to contribute to and are forthcoming about not being privy to the particulars of the situation. HRC is an ineffectual organization, top heavy in its admin, that banks on people feeling good becoming a part of ‘the movement’ by contributing to the ‘name brand’ LGBT organization (“BE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY”, they beg, at every turn), only to have their 25 or a hundred buck annual donation go to pay for Chad’s beach house or 5 star travel doing development cultivation. I resent the hell out of them for all of that.”

And so do we all Ken.  Maybe its time we do something about it.