Tag Archives: Matt Foreman

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: When San Francisco’s AIDS Legal Referral Panel was founded 40 years ago by a loose collective of gay attorneys desperate to help ill friends and loved ones, the vast majority of their work was crafting wills for young men, in some cases days before they died. Bill Hirsh, executive director of the nonprofit agency for …

Via email from Matt Foreman, former executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force: Three weeks ago, I was looking down into my husband’s unblinking eyes, seeing blood spill from his nose and mouth, and feeling my hand trying to stop the bleeding from the back of his head. In the background someone kept yelling, “Apply pressure! Apply pressure! Apply …

In an unanticipated announcement, New York state’s leading LGBT rights organization has revealed its plan to shut down. Paul Schindler reports at Gay City News: Citing its success in winning new state regulations protecting transgender New Yorkers from discrimination, the Empire State Pride Agenda has announced it will close down major operations in early 2016. In a press release issued …

“Hobby Lobby dramatically escalates the harm that will be caused if President Obama succumbs to growing pressure from religious and anti-gay forces and (with implicit or explicit approval from HRC) puts an ENDA-like religious exemption in the promised Executive Order (EO) to prohibit anti-LGBT discrimination by federal contractors. While largely under the radar, this is, in fact, a crisis situation. …

“It’s pathetic that four decades have gone by without Congress extending basic civil rights protections to LGBT Americans. It’s even more pathetic that what’s left of Bella Abzug’s comprehensive legislation is ENDA – a small-bore bill that is now riddled with giveaways to anti-gay forces, including a religious exemption big enough for an 18-wheeler to cruise through. It’s time to …

“In the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis, the anti-gay folks divided people with the disease into moral categories. You were either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on how you contracted the disease; and gay people, of course, were on the bad side. The current national debate over immigration reform has a similarly disturbing, divisive and moralizing undertone that echoes those …

This weekend I’ll be in Philadelphia to attend the fourth annual Haas Convening, a symposium for LGBT journalists sponsored by the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association. Organizer Bil Browning gives a preview at Bilerico: “This year’s convening is focusing on coalition building. We’ll have presentations on immigration reform, international issues, the …

Here’s a shot of this weekend’s 2012 Haas Convening, where LGBT journalists gathered in Houston for training and updates on the movement’s latest issues. Attending were such well-known bloggers as Jeremy Hooper (Good As You), Bil Browning (Bilerico Project), David Badash (New Civil Rights Movement), Rod McCollum (Rod 2.0), Zack Ford (Think Progress), Noah Michelson (HuffPo Gay Voices) and Scott …

After going back and forth with Twitter, Facebook, and meatspace pals, the consensus is that JR’s Houston will be the best spot for next Saturday’s meet-up. I’ll be in Texas for the Haas LGBT Journalists Convening, which this year is sponsored by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Hosting the whole shebang is NLGJA board member Bil Browning, the …

“Over 18 years, as executive director of a local, a statewide and a national organization, I saw firsthand how HRC had a tendency to undermine movement unity. They would undertake new initiatives or announce unhelpful positions in policy areas where they had little or no expertise; they were unnecessarily vague and secretive about meetings they were holding and about people …

Former NGLTF executive director Matt Foreman takes to the Huffington Post today for a thoughtful essay on why we continue to see hard-fought gains in the LGBT movement. An excerpt: While opponents of LGBT rights have at least eight national advocacy organizations with budgets of more than $10 million, the LGBT movement has just one. In fact, the annual budget …

Pictured above are the journalists, activists, researchers, allies and bloggers that attended this weekend’s Haas Fund-sponsored conference on LGBT youth homelessness, suicide prevention, and immigration equality. All very good people. UPDATE: Via the Windy City Times, here’s everybody’s names (from left to right). Michael Rogers, Eden James, Phil Reese, Andrés Duque, Karen Ocamb, Jeremy Hooper, Jean Albright, Tracy Baim, Ksen …

A large group of noted LGBT activists are in NYC this weekend to attend an immigration equality forum at the Desmond Tutu Center in Manhattan. The event is sponsored by the Four Freedoms Fund of the Public Interest Projects and will feature speakers from the LGBT-focused Immigration Equality group as well as experts from the comprehensive immigration reform movement. Last …

Matt Foreman, director of Gay and Immigrant Rights at the Evelyn & Walter Haas Fund, points us to a just-released report (PDF) called A Decade of Progress on LGBT Rights. The report is a joint project of Foreman’s group and the LGBT Movement Advancement Project (MAP). The extensive report lists the advancements and challenges in LGBT rights over the last …

“All of the focus on television ads, both in Maine and California, misses a huge point, namely, that advertising rarely moves more than a tiny fraction of people to change their minds on any candidate, subject or product that people feel they know well. And if there’s one issue that everyone thinks they know about, it’s marriage. Yet, somehow, people …

Former National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman sends us the below Op/Ed piece on the Proposition 8 battle. Foreman is now program director at the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund. This essay is rather long and I have linked below to other LGBT blogs where it can be read in full, which I recommend. California’s …

Here’s a slideshow of last night’s sweaty shenanigans. Go here for full-screen versions of the shots. If you don’t want your photo included here, please email me.

Two more of my friends have made it official. Former National Gay & Lesbian Task Force executive director Matt Foreman has married his partner Frank De Leon in San Francisco. The couple has been together for 18 years. From the New York Times: Mr. De León, 46, is the owner and president of FADesign, a graphic design firm in New …

Rea Carey, deputy executive director under Matt Foreman for the last four years, has been tapped to replace Foreman as executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. Foremen left the Task Force four months ago to helm the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund. Foreman reacts to Carey’s appointment: “Rea is an extraordinary leader, a brilliant thinker …

Here’s a few more pics from Matt Foreman’s going away party on Saturday, where slideshows projected onto two walls depicted Foreman’s decades of LGBT activism in New York. The photos ranged from his days as a founder of Heritage of Pride, his six years as head of the NYC Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, his six years as Executive Director …