Human Rights Campaign Strategies Strategic Issues Facing

Human Rights Campaign Strategies Strategic Issues Facing the Human Rights Campaign The Human Rights Campaign's primary mission is to "advocate on behalf of LGBT Americans, mobile grassroots actions in diverse communities, invest strategically to elect fair-minded individuals to office and educate the public about LGBT issues" (Human Rights Campaign, 2014). It is an advocacy group that is taking on new civil rights issues in a modern era: bringing equality to the LGBT community.

However, it is clear that there are some clear strategic issues that are dulling the movement and success of the organization. Essentially, the group has recently moved to take a more moderate stance in how they behave in politics, thinking that it might be more successive; yet, in doing so, the organization is isolating some of those with great passion for the cause who demand more action to find equality sooner.

The primary strategic issue here is that there is a clearly mixed message within the organization that is causing it to become more and more inefficient. According to the New York Times, "leaders of the gay rights movement are embroiled in a bitter and increasingly public debate over whether they should moderate their goals in the wake of bruising losses" of a number of states rejecting amendments to constitutions to allow for gay marriage (Broder, 2004).

This bending of advocacy strategies is meant to increase the ability for gay rights issues to permeate into more political arenas. The more dulled down the message, the more people are willing to accept it, such as the recent events with the Catholic Church. Many within the HRC have faced to the difficult strategic decision that "the group must bow to political reality and moderate its message and its goals" (Broder, 2004).

This is meant to get more Americans on board with LGBT issues, but is controversial because it is essentially loosing some of the passion of the HRC's mission. Recently in 2013, the HRC had asked advocates to tone down their message at the United for Marriage event at the Supreme Court.

Here, the research suggested that "in one case, a trans activist was asked to remove the trans pride flag from behind the podium, and in another, a queer undocumented speaker was asked to remove reference to his immigration status in his remarks" (Davis, 2014). Clearly, the HRC is trying to tone down its message, Yet, there are others within the groups that believe this strategy is wrong.

There are "others involved in the drive for gay and lesbian equality say the Human Rights Campaign's approach smacks of pre-emptive surrender and wrong-headed political calculation" (Broder, 2004). Appeasing the masses is only bowing down to the status quo and slowing the movement toward the equality that has been so long fought for. In this, the strategic issue is clear -- the mixed message is isolating members and causing stress within the organization.

There is not a single and united message, and members of the organization are even turning on each other when they disagree on strategy. From the Bryson text, the most useful of the elements presented is the appropriation of more effective plan adoption. Right now, the message behind the HRC is mixed. Spending more time and effort on plan adoption will help unify the message and calm down internal issues within the organization.

According to the text, "in order to gain necessary support, key decision makers and important stakeholders must be open to the idea of change, and they must be offered specific inducements to gain their support" (Bryson 243). Members of the HRC need to put aside their biases and find a common ground. They can reach a common goal and still maintain the unique elements of different personalities. They just need to keep those differences out of the public eye and stand behind a more unified plan.

Thus, "considerable bargaining, negotiation, and invention of items to trade may be necessary in order to find the right combination of exchanges and inducements to gain the support needed without also bargaining away key features of the proposed strategies and plans" (Bryson 243).