LAST NIGHT | Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese speaks at a previous Black Tie Dinner in Dallas. Solmonese will be leaving HRC next March, making this weekend’s event the last Black Tie Dinner he will attend as president of the national LGBT advocacy organization.
Outgoing HRC president says community must fight for Obama
JOHN WRIGHT | Senior Political Writer
wright@dallasvoice.com
Joe Solmonese admits he’s “very concerned” about President Barack Obama’s prospects for re-election.
But Solmonese says he’s equally concerned about how the LGBT community — and his successor at the Human Rights Campaign — would respond if Obama loses.
Solmonese will step down as president of HRC after seven years in March. On Saturday, Nov. 12, he’ll make his final appearance as the group’s president at the Black Tie Dinner, of which HRC is the national beneficiary.
In an interview last month with Dallas Voice, Solmonese focused largely on the importance of 2012 elections, saying that depending on their outcome, major advances during his tenure could be all but erased.
“I don’t think that he’s going to lose,” Solmonese said at one point, attempting to clarify his assessment of Obama’s chances. “I think that if everybody does what they need to do, I think there is just as good a chance that Barack Obama will be re-elected, but I’m as concerned that he could lose.”
Solmonese said Republicans already have a majority in the House, Democrats have only a slim majority in the Senate, and “everything about these [2012] elections points to us having real challenges.”
“I think that if everybody who has gained from the Obama administration does everything they need to do over the course of the next year, he’ll get re-elected,” Solmonese said. “But I would be lying if I said I’m not very concerned about the prospects of him getting re-elected.”
Solmonese said the message he wants to send to the LGBT community is that Obama has done more for us than any other president, and that the movement has seen more gains under the current administration than at any other time in its history.
“If we care about continuing with the forward motion that we’ve experienced, then we as a community need to do everything possible to re-elect Barack Obama,” Solmonese said. “And we can talk about and debate and press the administration on his ability to do more, and him coming out for marriage, or anything else that we want to talk about, but now is the time to sort of decouple that from all of the work we need to put into getting him re-elected. Because at the end of the day, it comes down to a choice, and the choice isn’t even hard for me: It’s Barack Obama or any of these other people who are running against him.”
Despite his concerns about Obama’s chances, Solmonese said he has no misgivings about leaving HRC seven months prior to Election Day. He said he made a commitment to give the organization six months notice, and his contract expires in March.
He said announcing his resignation at the end of August allowed HRC to begin the transition process, which will be completed when his successor takes over, midway through the Republican primary. Solmonese also said he’ll continue to be involved with the organization through next year, assisting with its efforts around the November election.
“I’m a lot more concerned about what happens the morning after the elections,” Solmonese said. “I’m a lot more concerned about this organization and its leader being in the best possible position to navigate those waters, and either we are contemplating a second term with Obama and a continuation of our agenda and perhaps a decidedly different Congress, or we’re contemplating President Mitt Romney and all of the implications that means for our community, and I want whoever is in this seat leading this organization contemplating where we go from there, to have had some time under their belt to figure that out.”
Asked whether that means he believes Romney will be the Republican nominee, Solmonese clarified that anyone claims to know definitively “doesn’t’ know what they’re talking about” — but he added that he thinks the former Massachusetts governor is the “odds-on favorite.”
And while Romney may appear less anti-gay than some other GOP presidential hopefuls, Solmonese called him “someone you have to be careful of” because “he’s essentially beholden to no issue.”
“He adopts a position that works best for the political predicament he finds himself in,” said Solmonese, a Massachusetts native who’s watched Romney’s political career closely. “So, while he was seemingly pro-gay as he attempted to unseat Ted Kennedy, and his rhetoric isn’t harsh and he doesn’t have the same sort of narrative that a Rick Santorum has, he’s effectively said that he doesn’t believe in the repeal of ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ and that he would support the federal marriage amendment. But what we don’t know, just like we didn’t really anticipate with [President] George [W.] Bush, is how beholden he is going to feel to the hard right once he becomes president.”
It was Bush, of course, whose administration was pushing a federal marriage amendment when Solmonese joined HRC in 2005. The marriage amendment, Solmonese said, represents the worst possible thing that could happen to the LGBT community, because it would enshrine discrimination into the Constitution. And although the threat of the amendment may seem like a distant memory to some, Solmonese warned that it could easily resurface. Which is why, he said, the 2012 elections are the biggest challenge HRC faces going forward.
“I think the elections loom largest because what the elections really represent to me is the potential for us to really stop, potentially derail and ultimately set back a lot of the progress that we’ve made,” Solmonese said. “What also concerns me then is that the community be braced for that, and we understand that we’ve been in these places before, and the measure of who we are and how we’ll be defined, is how we react in those moments, the degree to which we stay in the fight and make sure we continue to press forward regardless of the outcome of the election.”
Solmonese said he fears the progress of the last several years may lead to complacency. And he said based on his experience, when the LGBT community suffers setbacks, instead of regrouping and uniting, people have a tendency to lose their way and point fingers.
“If we lose, if the outcome is negative, if we go from the march toward marriage equality and the repeal of DOMA and the positive direction that we’ve been in, to a president and a Congress who decide they’re so troubled by all the success we’re having with marriage they want to take up the fight again to pass the federal marriage amendment — well, boy, we’ve come full circle from where we were back in 2005, the last time that happened,” he said. “And you can react to that in one of two ways. You can say this is the inevitable ebb and flow of social change, so pull up your boot straps and let’s get going and turn that around again — and understand that that sort of energy that the other side has around something like that is a reaction to their own fear of the progress we’ve made — or you can become very dispirited and depressed and disenfranchised and decide that it’s our own doing, it’s our own lack of progress, it’s our own failing. And that would be the worst possible thing that we could do.”
It still boggles my mind that so many of my friends continue to vote straight Democratic Party tickets and think that the Democratic Party can do no wrong. Just as Bill Clinton won the slogan “its the economy stupid”, I think that can be said today. \
The Dodd Frank Banking bill has given us all these Car Title Loans on every corner. And Wells Fargo used its TARP money to buy Wachovia. The Obama Administration knows nothing about commerce except the kind that is used in Chicago. Watch it folks do not walk lock step into a country with the same economic footing as some of our European Counterparts. California is our Greece, but they have all those rights, how can we be critical of them. Wake up and smell the coffee, and perhaps HRC would have more money to spend on equal rights with less expensive digs..
couldn’t agree with you more tomindallas
Tomin…
Tell me who would you vote for and why? Do you vote money over yourself?
To all my fellow gays, vote for someone else and please stand in line first for all the negative stuff that happens, you personally deserve it. Just my take
George, You don’t have to choose between money or yourself. Ron Paul wants government totally out of marriage. He believes American citizens should all have equal rights because they are American citizens. He is conservative, but recognizes that religious doctrines should truly be separate from the government, and his personal opinions shouldn’t be forced on others. He also has predicted every major downturn of our economy as well as the European crisis now that’s mirroring our own. His ideas such as auditing the federal reserve were once viewed as radical, but have recently proven to be right as $16 trillion in secret loans have been uncovered to bail out banks that were never reported publicly. He has never taken a government pension, and has been steadfast and unwavering on his views. I’m voting for Ron Paul because I want someone with integrity in office. …and yes, my last point is that if someone has to “evolve” to believe that I’m as worthy of a person as they are, then they are truly waiting for it to be politically profitable to support me. That’s not a good person who sticks by their morals. That’s an opportunist.
Let me reword it then, out of the people who actually can win (or get the nomination) who would you chose? Ron doesn’t believe in a constitutional amendment? Great! What about other issues that effect us, whats your take on them?
Chris let me ask you a question, knowing what you know and hearing what we all hear from the GOP runners (that can win) how do you look past that and vote for them. Help me understand that.
As for marriage I agree with you on the evolve thing but out of all winnable runners Obama is the only one who would not stop you from marring who you want. He may not like it but he won’t stop you. All but Paul would sign an amendment.
I love the money I have, my home my cars (my Bricklin love it) my bike all that but I can’t vote for that stuff over me being able to marry, free to work at any job I’m qualified for, join the military, adopt kids or see my loved one in the hospital as he’s dying. I NOT saying dems are great their not and I’m not all dem. I believe in my right to own a gun (I do), an eye for an eye, if kids want religion groups in school go for it, I think ALL kids should say the pledge, I support both wars and like lower tax but not voting on that stuff over me. I get your point I do I just see things differently.
Tom when the GOP vote directly on you, does it mean anything to you?