ACT UP Protests Human Rights Campaign in NYC and San Fran

The AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) and other HIV activist organizations will converge to protest the neglect of the AIDS crisis by mainstream LGBT organizations at the annual gala held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City by Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

"HRC has been absent on HIV in major ways. Even as HIV advocates go hat in hand begging for programs like PreP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis), HRC throws galas for thousands of dollars a plate and is nowhere to be found in New York City on critical issues such as LGBT homelessness," writes ACT Up.

ACT UP New York demands that HRC immediately appoint a liaison dedicated specifically to work on HIV -- not a Fellow that works temporarily. HRC should work with grassroots organizers on the ground. While the party is going on at the Waldorf, countless homeless LGBT youth are in life-threatening need on the streets of New York.

"We demand that HRC work to repeal the outdated CDC policy regarding federal funding for explicit and comprehensive sex education materials," they write. "Buried in Jesse Helms' basement since 1992, his homophobic and HIV-phobic legacy continues to impede effective HIV prevention efforts.

Speaking about the ban, ACT UP member Andy Velez said, "The Human Rights Campaign's absence on a core issue like HIV prevention policies is more glaring evidence of their failure to demonstrate bold leadership."

A whopping 33 pages, buried somewhere on the HRC website, is devoted to HIV. By contrast, 436 are dedicated to marriage. It seems weddings are more important than the fag dying in Louisiana because he can't get meds. Right here, there are more than a hundred thousand New Yorkers living with HIV and thousands more getting it every year, all relying on the same scant resources, says ACT UP.

People need to rethink giving money to a dinosaur that is failing to mobilize its infrastructure sufficiently at a local level to help our communities. HRC sucks in millions every year in membership fees to the gay non-profit industrial complex (Gay Inc.) and pats itself on the back while ironically paying lip service to the words "it gets better."

We challenge HRC to rate itself on what it is doing for HIV.

Also on Saturday, activists in San Francisco will host a radical brunch outside the HRC Store in the Castro in solidarity with ACT UP and to protest HRC's growing disconnect from low income LGBT people among other issues.

ACT UP New York invites you to join us in our just protest; we'll be grading HRC. Bring your report cards.

Founded in 1987, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis. ACT UP meets every Monday night at 7 p.m. in New York City at the LGBT Community Center, 208 West 13th Street off 7th Ave.

For more information, visit www.actupny.org/