Six GLAAD Board Members Resign

The controversy that prompted the resignation of GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios has widened to include the departures of six members of the group's board of directors. Politico reports:

Six board members of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation have resigned amid the fallout over the organization's letter in support of AT&T’s proposed bid for wireless rival T-Mobile, a person familiar with the matter told POLITICO. Some board members were said to have resigned because of concerns that GLAAD failed to adhere to its conflict of interest standards and to protest GLAAD's failure to protect its president, Jarrett Barrios, who submitted his letter of resignation to the group Saturday amid a growing backlash in the gay blogosphere over the group's AT&T stance. Barrios had signed the letter GLAAD sent to the FCC in support of the wireless mega-deal.

GLAAD Head Jarrett Barrios Resigns

After enduring weeks of criticism over a letter sent to the FCC supporting the merger of AT&T and TMobile, GLAAD head Jarrett Barrios has resigned. Those critical of the letter pointed out that AT&T is one of GLAAD's biggest annual donors. Other recipients of AT&T donations such as the NAACP and the NEA have issued similar letters.

GLAAD Joins Call For Kern To Resign

"Given her long and well-documented history of extreme bias towards minorities, this apology means nothing. Republicans and Democrats alike agree that the kind of blatant bigotry from an elected official like Sally Kern has no place in our public sphere. Sally Kern should resign immediately." - Jarrett Barrios, president of GLAAD, joining the NAACP in demanding that Kern resign.

SLIDESHOW: 2011 GLAAD Awards

On the GLAAD Media Awards red carpet: Ricky Martin, Andy Cohen, the Fabulous Beekman Boys, Denis O'Hare, Wilson Cruz, Tracy Young, Jarrett Barrios, Russell Simmons (and lots of reality/cooking show folks I don't really know) followed by lots of shots of the awards show, including winner Tina Fey. Full-screen versions here.

GLAAD's Jarrett Barrios To Divorce

GLAAD executive director Jarrett Barrios, seen above with his sons, announced today that he is divorcing his husband. Together for sixteen years, the pair married in Massachusetts almost six years ago. Barrios made the revelation in a lengthy Boston Globe editorial today.

As our families continue the march towards equality, the gay and lesbian community often doesn’t talk about divorce, even though some of the most important protections associated with marriage are exercised at the end of a relationship — protections that help the more economically vulnerable partner, give a formula for sharing the care of the children, and establish how two people can disentangle a life’s worth of acquisitions, compromises, and dreams. Just as gay and lesbian couples share the joys of marriage, we will share the pain of divorce, something for which we have no template. Divorce plumbs impossible depths of sadness. It involves separating the dishes and the books and all the other things you acquired back when you both still felt the lightness of love, asserting to a judge at a public trial that, yes, your marriage has broken down irretrievably, and telling your parents whose marriage of 47 years hangs heavy over your anemic explanations to them.

Tomorrow At 8PM: CNN's Gary & Tony Have A Baby

Last week Father Tony and I attended a preview screening of CNN's gay parenting documentary Gary & Tony Have A Baby, which follows New Yorkers Gary Spino and Tony Brown from finding an egg donor, to hiring a surrogate mother, to the eventual birth of their son. The couple's journey is expensive and trying, but ultimately quite sweet, even if it's a route that few gay couples could ever afford.

The film is part of CNN's Gay In America series and last week's screening was co-hosted by CNN reporter (and the documentary's narrator), Soledad O'Brien, as well as GLAAD executive director Jarrett Barrios. I have to give CNN big props for tackling this project, which involved filming in multiple states over more than a year. In addition to the big PR push for tomorrow's night's showing at 8PM, they've created an teacher's guide for high schools and colleges.

GLAAD's Jarrett Barrios, who has two adoptive sons of his own, stressed to me that while the vast majority of gay couples use other methods to create their families, Gary & Tony Have A Baby is nevertheless a very positive look at a gay parenthood. The trailer is here and below are just a few photos I took at the screening.

GLAAD Responds To Signorile

GLAAD writes us this morning directing us to a response to Michelangelo Signorile's Advocate column criticizing their fundraising methods and other tactics, which I excerpted here yesterday. GLAAD executive director Jarrett Barrios, from a lengthy reaction also posted on the Advocate's site:

It seems like Signorile, and many who criticize GLAAD’s work, do so because we don’t always see eye to eye. Because we don’t respond to the things they want us to respond to in exactly the way they want us to respond — or, sometimes, because we do respond to certain things and they think we shouldn't (and it's worth noting that these voices of criticism can and often do end up disagreeing with each other about what they think GLAAD ought to be doing). That's to be expected in a community of diverse voices and perspectives, and such feedback, from Signorile and many others, is valuable as we shape and continually evaluate our work. [snip] Signorile and others also fail to understand that the role of the GLAAD Media Awards is to help fund this work in addition to recognizing news coverage and entertainment media that are doing an exceptional job at bringing LGBT stories into the living rooms of America — while also setting a fairness benchmark for the media industry. GLAAD is an organization that survives because people know and understand the enormous task we undertake. We appreciate that support and will continue to boldly face our challenges.

Read the entire essay, Barrios responds to several specific incidents which have garnered GLAAD recent criticism.

GLAAD On Hate Crimes Act Passage

GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios talks about the passage of the hate crimes act and what may be coming next from the Obama administration.

New GLAAD Head On Obama

This is the first national TV interview I've seen with new GLAAD head Jarrett Barrios. He'll be at tonight's party at the White House.

GLAAD Announces New President

Today GLAAD announced that they have selected a replacement for outgoing president Neal Giuliano.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and GLAAD’s National Board of Directors today announced that Jarrett T. Barrios, a former State Senator from Massachusetts who now heads a leading health care foundation, will serve as GLAAD’s new President. GLAAD works to achieve full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans through media advocacy and anti-LGBT defamation work. “We’re making progress toward equality, but we’ll only achieve full equality if we change hearts and minds – and that’s what GLAAD is all about,” said Barrios. “We’re working for the day when every one of us is accepted, respected and valued for the contributions we make to this country. It’s an ambitious goal, but I know we can do it. I believe in our community, and I believe in our country.”

At 40 years of age, Barrios will become the youngest leader of GLAAD and, as a Cuban-American, he will be the first head of a national LGBT organization fluent in English and Spanish. He was the first openly gay person and the first Latino elected to the Massachusetts State Senate, where he represented a largely white, Catholic, working-class district. He is an accomplished fundraiser and manager who broke fundraising records in his election campaigns and managed a multi-million dollar budget at the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts. He is married to Doug Hattaway, his partner of 16 years, and they are raising two teenage sons.