In the wake of a debacle that started at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation ( GLAAD ) and ended with major LGBT organizations nationally, Windy City Times has found that Chicago organizations largely avoided the fray.
LGBT groups across the country came under scrutiny last week when turmoil at GLAAD set off a chain of revelations that many groups sponsored by AT&T had sent anti-net neutrality letters to the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) . Some groups, including GLAAD and the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, also sent letters endorsing an AT&T and T Mobile merger.
Jarrett Barrios, GLAAD's president, resigned over the controversy earlier this month, and six board members followed, setting off media investigations of other LGBT groups and AT&T.
Several groups, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force sent letters only to later retract them. Net neutrality refers to the idea that internet service providers should not be allowed to limit or control users' access to certain websites and content.
Letters from LGBT groups to the FCC started surfacing two years ago. But while LGBT groups on both coasts have been recanting their letters under intense scrutiny, Chicago's largest LGBT organizations never sent letters to begin with.
Center on Halsted is one Chicago benefactor of AT&T. Christopher Schram, Dir. of Development at the Center, said that the company is not currently an active donor directly but that it has been in past years.
"We [ still ] get a lot of gifts from employees who work at AT&T," Schram said. But Schram said, the Center sent no letter.
According to Brad McLaughlin, Chief Development Officer at Howard Brown Health Center ( HBHC ) , his organization never lobbied the FCC either. He said just one employee from AT&T donated a very small amount to the organization recently, and that AT&T donated a silent auction item worth $100 to HBHC four years ago.
"Certainly there was no monetary incentive to act in any way," he said.
Equality Illinois might have been the likeliest suspect. The organization has accepted donations from AT&T for years. An AT&T spokesperson confirmed that the company has cut checks to Equality Illinois this year.
"We have made contributions to Equality Illinois," read a statement released to Windy City Times by AT&T Illinois. "It's an important organization and we have supported it for years, including this year. We're proud of it."
The statement did not say in what amount AT&T contributed to Equality Illinois. Press releases from the past two years, however, indicate that AT&T has been a major contributor to Equality Illinois before.
Equality Illinois also gave AT&T its 2010 Business Leadership Award for "its exemplary commitment to LGBT employees and the LGBT community at large."
Still, the organization says it never lobbied the FCC on behalf of AT&T.
"Equality Illinois did not take any position on the Federal Communication Commission's consideration of net neutrality," Bernard Cherkasov, CEO of Equality Illinois told Windy City Times. Cherkasov did not respond when asked if he had been approached to submit such a letter, although he told other news sources that he had not.
Whether Chicago LGBT organizations took the moral high ground or not remains uncertain.
Rick Garcia, the spurned former Dir. of Public Policy at Equality Illinois, said that he believes no one in LGBT Chicago was even asked to write a letter. Garcia said he spoke with several organizations who said they were never asked.
"It's all very weird," he said. "A lot of folks just view New York, Washington, San Francisco, and L.A. as the epicenters, and they just fly over us."
Garcia, who co-founded Equality Illinois and has sometimes been thunderous about his disapproval of its leadership since he was fired last year, speculated that some organizations, including Equality Illinois, would have sent letters if asked in hopes of securing donations.
Regardless, Chicago LGBT groups have come out looking squeaky clean in a mess that has cast a dark shadow over mainstream gay organizing nationally.
"It's a blessing in disguise that it appears that only organizations on the coast were asked," Garcia said "They passed us over so we don't have to deal with that drama or dilemma."
