What a mess! GLAAD, EqualityCalifornia, AT&T, and the threat to Net Neutrality

by Ken

I don't know if you've been following the fracas, so far focused mainly on GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) -- leading to the resignation of executive director, Jarrett Barrios earlier this week -- surrounding the disclosure that a number of organizations that over time had accepted substantial contributions from AT&T and even had a man with close ties to the company on their boards had filed statements of support for AT&T's plan to dismantle Net Neutrality which were in fact written by AT&T. (GLAAD does oustanding work on public, notably media, misperception on LGBT issues. The universsally admired work of its highly energetic and highly effective staff can't have been made easier by the hubbub of these last couple of weeks.)

Yesterday FDL's Teddy Partridge reported this latest development (links onsite):

Troup Coronado, AT&T Handmaiden, Leaves Equality California Institute Board

By: Teddy Partridge, Friday June 24, 2011 10:56 am

Having slithered off the GLAAD board of directors amidst other departures announced in that organization’s long-awaited statement, Troup Coronado, Esq., — the AT&T handmaiden who’s the source of all this travail in LBGT organizations that took “stands” on the T-Mobile merger and net neutrality — has left the Equality California Institute Board of Directors as well.

It’s a good thing, too, since Troup Coronado’s anti-gay efforts in the Heritage Foundation and the GWBush Administration are coming to light, as well as his smarmy history of breaking “ethics” rules in place during the Wild West Denny Hastert/Tom Delay era as a House lobbyist.

Earlier this week, Equality California withdrew a letter to the Federal Communications Commission from its then-Executive Director, Geoff Kors, about net neutrality. Here is I-ED Carroll’s recent e-mail and his letter to the FCC withdrawing that letter:

On behalf of Equality California I have sent the letter copied below to the FCC withdrawing our previous letter. As it says in the letter it was never our intention to oppose Net Neutrality.

And on behalf of myself I made an error in an interview yesterday with Chris Geidner in which I said that Equality California doesn’t have a policy with regard to our policy positions. In fact, there is a policy that allows the Executive Director to make decisions on policies that are core to the mission of Equality California. On issues that are outside of our core mission, such as support for our friends in labor or in the reproductive rights community, there is a policy that requires the board to weigh in if a board meeting is timely, or directs the matter to the Executive Committee. In the event of an urgent policy choice the ED can seek counsel from the Board President. I apologize for any confusion this might have created. I’ve only been Interim ED for 7 weeks!

Jim Carroll

June 22, 2011

The Honorable Julius Genachowski
Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW, Room 8-B201
Washington, DC 20554
RE: Withdrawal of letter dated October 12, 2009 – Broadband Industry Practices (WC Docket No. 07-52)

Dear Chairman Genachowski and Commissioners:

On October 12, 2009, Equality California submitted a letter to the Commission urging the preservation of an “open and accessible Internet” and requesting an effort to reach out to the LGBT community. It has come to our attention that the phrase “open and accessible Internet” can be taken to indicate opposition to net neutrality, which was neither our intention nor our organization’s position. We fully support the principles of net neutrality.

Accordingly, we request that you withdraw our letter of October 12, 2009.

Very truly yours,

Jim Carroll
Interim Executive Director
Equality California

Equality California promises a statement shortly; when I receive it I will append it as an update to this post.

Teddy, you'll note, is pretty tough on the orgs who've taken Troup Coronado into their bosom. Actually, it's not entirely clear that he has been engaged in unremitting evil masterminding.

For that matter, there's been a lot of anguish in the LGBT community over the vilification of AT&T. It's pointed out that the company has an unusually good record on its treatment of LGBT employees as well as its financial support of LGBT organizations and causes -- money that's admittedly a drop in the bucket for a company of its size but that may spell life or death for the recipients of its largesse, always hard-pressed for cash, and obviously much more so in the desperate climate following the economic meltdown. Was it wrong for orgs to accept, even welcome support from a source that has long seemed on board with their causes?

It seems kind of far-fetched that AT&T planted Troup Coronado on those boards as the linchpin of a scheme to infiltrate LGBT orgs to engineer the support that will put their anti-Net Neutrality crusade over the top. At the same time, it's a little scary to discover that some LGBT activists don't understand how damaging the AT&T-engineered breach of Net Neutrality will be, not just for LGBT causes, but for everyone who isn't a top-dollar supporter of the corporatist state.

Net Neutrality sounds like such an abstract, minor technical issue, sort of the way "media concentration" did all those years when annoying Cassandras were warning of its danger to free and open expression. Well, nothing ever was done to slow the onrush of media conglomeration, and here we are in a world where an alarmingly paltry number of media moguls control an alarmingly large portion of what passes for mass-consumed news.

If the result hasn't been quite as dire as the Cassandras warned (at least not yet), it's in good part because of the unforeseen rise of the Internet, making possible the widespread dissemination of non-corporate-blessed content. Thank goodness the corporatists won't be able to get their grubby mitts on that!

Oh, wait.

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