Posted on
Advocate.com December 12, 2011 09:25:49 PM ET
Protesters Occupy HRC Store in S.F.
By Trudy Ring
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/12/12/Protesters_Occupy_HRC_Store_in_SF/The Human Rights Campaign Action Center and Store in San Francisco's Castro district was the site of a recent Occupy protest — but HRC officials say they share the movement's concern about economic issues.
Protesters with Occupy the Castro marched through the neighborhood December 3, chanting, distributing literature, stopping to deliver a letter about economic injustice to a Citibank branch, and finally ending up at the HRC store, located in the building that once housed pioneering gay politician Harvey Milk's camera shop.
Inside the store, they chanted, "HRC, don't speak for me!" and "We're a movement, not a market!" (See video below.) They also delivered a letter highlighting the high rate of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment among LGBT people, especially transgender people. It reads in part, "We call on the Human Rights Campaign to make affordable housing, living wage jobs, the maintenance of benefits, and healthcare for all priorities that it pushes on both the local and national level. Never has it been more critical for our national organizations to stand up for bread-and-butter issues that affect the 99% of us who struggle to make ends meet every day."
