I don't know how I got on the mailing list of the "Human Rights Campaign," but I suppose somebody sold or traded my address to them. I make a point of having nothing to do with the HRC. So, I wrote the following on the slip asking me for money and returned it in the Business Reply Mail envelope.

Take me off your mailing list. You are too corrupt, too homophobic, and too bigoted against atheists.

Perhaps an explanation to those of you who don't follow queer issues is in order.

Corruption and Homophobia at the HRC:
The HRC may pretend to support the queer civil rights movement, but their actions are quite different. Here are some examples.

1) Regularly endorsing politicians who are less supportive of lgbt issues than their opponents because they are Republicans.

2) Inviting vicious and fanatical homophobes like the Clintons and Nancy Pelosi to speak at their fundraising galas.

3) Focusing on pandering to wealthy donors to the exclusion of fighting back against the heterosexism among so many politicians in both major political parties.

4) Supporting, in 2007, a phony version of ENDA that excluded transgender queers and was riddled with so many other loopholes that it was almost completely unenforceable in court.

5) Inviting Barack Obama to give a bullshit speech at one of their dinners despite the fact that he had done nothing of any real significance to support lgbt issues and had actively promoted bigotry, discrimination, and violence against us by involving the notorious misogynist and homophobe, Rick Warren, in the inauguration.

Anti Atheist Bigotry:
The HRC is so hateful and bigoted that they have devoted a huge section of their website to Religion and Faith despite the fact that neither is a legitimate area of concern for political organizations. The HRC also devotes staff time and financial resources to this discriminatory endeavor.

All efforts to impose religion on politics are, by their very nature, deliberate and vicious acts of bigotry and discrimination against atheists and agnostics. Bringing religion into politics is a deliberate effort to oppress and silence freethinkers and to treat us as second class citizens. A lot of us are no longer willing to passively go along with this.

The whole effort is politically tone deaf as well. Religion is the main reason why people are homophobic. Debating queer issues in religious terms only reminds them that their religious faiths tell them that queers should be the targets of of discrimination and violence. It always has been far more successful to argue for lgbt equality in human terms. Sadly, the HRC is so fanatical in its bigotry against atheists that they can't even see this huge elephant in their living room. Of course, effectiveness has never been particularly important to a vapid, self serving, and shallow organization like the HRC.

The bigotry doesn't stop there either. In 2000, instead of supporting a civil rights march on Washington, they supported the "Millennium March," which functioned as an effort to shove religion down the throats of queers that don't want it. It also avoided lgbt civil rights issues and focused on producing an image of queers that excluded a variety of groups. The HRC was determined to erase people of color, atheists, non Christian religious believers, the transgender community, bisexuals, the leather community, liberals, drag queens, leftists, the sexually liberated, and the poor. Obviously, the HRC's bigotry wasn't limited to atheists, but we were front and center as a target of their hate.

It's no wonder attendance was so low. There just weren't that many people left.

I am so sick of the HRC pretending to be a civil rights organization and a part of the lgbt movement when it isn't even close to being either. I am so sick of being a target of their discrimination against atheists.