The centerpiece of the Sept. 27 Human Rights Campaign ( HRC ) 2014 Chicago Gala and Auction was a brand-new, bright red Lexus that set the scene for the black-tie event held in two of the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park's more lavish venues that advertised as the place where "Chicago meets modern luxury."
Among other highlights were live-auction items ranging from $5,000-shopping sprees from Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams premiere home furnishings to business-class tickets to Europe on American Airlines. All proceeds went to the HRC's programs "in the name of equality," as the auctioneer stated.
That equality was defined by a roster of speakers who recited a litany of the HRC's accomplishments over the past year while—in the case of HRC President Chad Griffin—encouraging the dinner guests to dig deeper and understand the need for the organization post-marriage equality in Illinois.
The speaker line-up had changed somewhat from those originally advertised. Instead of Gov. Pat Quinn, Mayor Rahm Emanuel delivered a message to Chicago's "gay and lesbian community."
"Amy [Emanuel's wife] and I try to raise our kids with the sense of tolerance, acceptance and strength through differences and diversity," Emanuel said. "The gay and lesbian community in, not just the city of Chicago but throughout the country, has allowed Amy and I to raise our kids in a society with a set of values that reflect the idea of tolerance and the idea of respect. The gay and lesbian community has allowed us to be true to who we are as a country, city and state."
Preceded by a series of vignettes that included news clips and endorsements designed to showcase how the 34-year-old organization spent more than $36 million in revenue ( as reported during its 2012 fiscal year ), Griffin said he was there to "celebrate some of the incredible victories that we've all achieved together."
"In just a few short years, this community has transformed the state and together we're changing this country," he said. "Just think about how far we've all come together. One year ago, gay and lesbian couples had won the right to marry right here in Illinois but it looked like couples in states like Utah and Pennsylvania would have to wait years for that opportunity."
His subsequent "long list of what we've all accomplished as a movement" centered around the defeat of the Defense of Marriage Act ( DOMA ) and the individual states where marriage equality is legal including his personal favorite "1,360 couples in the Mormon stronghold of Utah."
Griffin also laid out three new initiatives that have "set the course for the future of this movement." They included Project One America—according to Griffin "an unprecedented $8.5 million campaign for equality in the Deep South," HRC Global —an effort to strengthen the global equality movement and finally HRC's intention to lead the fight for a comprehensive LGBT-rights bill in the next session of congress. "It's a bill with nondiscrimination protections that don't just stop at employment," Griffin asserted, "but finally touch each and every aspect of our lives from housing to public accommodation to credit to the education that we all need to survive. The time has come for full federal equality, nothing more, nothing less."
Griffen also stated that millions of LGBT people in the United States live on the "other side of a dark wall of discrimination." He said that such discrimination included "no reliable access to affordable HIV care, no right for same-sex couples to even adopt and certainly no right to marriage equality."
"There's a reason why every single one of you are here still in this room tonight," he said. "There's no question that we have incredible victories behind us and we certainly have hope ahead of us."
There were prominent figures and activists from Chicago's transgender community attending the event. However, the word "transgender" was rarely mentioned during the course of three hours.
In summarizing her opinions of the evening to Windy City Times, trans* activist, writer, the founder of WeHappyTrans and the co-founder of the Trans 100 event Jen Richards said, "While my private discussions with HRC staff in D.C. have given me hope that the organization will direct resources to trans issues, particularly violence against trans women of color, I was disappointed to see no evidence of such concerns at the gala. Marriage appears to remain their primary focus, and rich gay white men their primary base."
One truly genuine moment of the evening was provided by HRC board member Kristen Shrimplin. The Ohio woman talked candidly about the horrific bullying she endured as a middle and high school student after she wrote an article in her student newspaper about racism, sexism and homophobia. "Being who I was became a threat to six childhood male friends" she said. "These six boys made it their mission to verbally, emotionally, physically and sexually threaten and harm me."
Her locker was desecrated with "the hateful words of 'faggot,' 'dyke' and other words I cannot repeat," she said. "I was shoved, pushed, kicked, cornered and screamed at by those six boys. Every day for a year and half [they] terrorized me. I spent a year and a half sitting in my homeroom staring straight ahead as they read out loud a very long and slow list of '100 ways to kill Kristen.' To this day I still remember way number 32: 'Tie down and rape at gunpoint.'" Shrimplin stated that neither her teachers nor fellow students spoke up in her defense.
Although billed to speak at the event, Chicago PD actress Sophia Bush could not attend. She was replaced by a longtime friend of Griffin's Jonathan Del Arco—an actor and activist best known for a recurring role in the cable network drama The Closer and a performance as a Borg who developed a conscience in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Del Arco spoke emotionally about his career as a closeted—and then out—stage and television performer "using art to change people's minds."
"In New York I fell in love with a boy who died of AIDS at the old age of 33," he said holding back a tear. "I was in my early twenties playing nurse to my first love. It was just the two of us facing the beast. When he died, I realized I could no longer live a lie of any kind."
Ironically, Del Arco stated "sometimes our own kind are our enemies," while recalling his days in Hollywood auditioning for gay casting directors. "I lost jobs because someone thought 'he's light in the loafers'."
"The fact that on the streets of Philadelphia that a gay couple walking hand-in-hand can be brutally beaten by a bunch of ignorant, stupid criminals just goes to show you that we have so much work left to do," Del Arco concluded. "I'll do my part."
The evening itself concluded with two after-parties. DJ Carol Chang flew in from San Francisco to spin tunes at one of them.
