GLAAD is one of the most radical LGBT groups in the United States. Its influential activists aggressively promote medically transitioning gender-confused minors by harassing media outlets that air dissenting views, maintain Orwellian lists tracking journalists and public figures who disagree with them, and have even tried to redefine homosexuality out of existence in the name of newfangled gender ideology.
It’s all a far cry from GLAAD’s beginnings. The organization was originally founded to do noble work, such as defending AIDS victims from the vicious homophobia they routinely received during the AIDS epidemic. How did such an organization become hijacked by partisanship and end up so radicalized?
Well, if a damning new exposé is anything to go by, there’s a relatively simple explanation: It’s the money, stupid.
A remarkable report from journalist Emily Steel reveals that GLAAD has, in recent years, used its $30 million-plus budget to fund an extravagant lifestyle for its executives, in ways that likely breach both its internal policies and IRS rules. For example, Steel recounts GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis’s 2023 journey to the World Economic Forum’s conference in Davos, Switzerland, noting that she flew in “Delta’s most exclusive cabin,” she was “chauffeur[ed] to the Swiss Alps” in a Mercedes, and “she and her colleagues would stay at the Tivoli Lodge, a seven-bedroom chalet that cost nearly half a million dollars to rent for the week.”
This wasn’t an outlier example.
“When Ms. Ellis traveled for work, there were first-class flights, stays at the Waldorf Astoria and other luxury hotels and expensive car services,” Steel reported. “Not to mention a Cape Cod summer rental and nearly $20,000 to remodel her home office, which was outfitted with a chandelier, among other accouterments.”
All this, while low-level employees were routinely nickel-and-dimed on small expenses, with the report even recounting one incident where a staffer was forced to reimburse GLAAD for a cup of coffee after expensing it.
Meanwhile, Ellis negotiated a new contract in 2022 that put her, after including various bonuses and add-ons, “on track to receive anywhere from about $700,000 to $1.3 million a year.”
Experts and lawyers who spoke to the New York Times confirmed that much of this is unusual and possibly legally suspect.
The gall of this grift is jaw-dropping. Some of the most prominent LGBT activists in this country, who supposedly have dedicated their lives to pursuing “justice” and “equity,” are breaking their organization’s own rules to cash in on first-class flights, lavish trips, and even home renovations!
As journalist Benjamin Ryan reported , GLAAD is responding to this story in part by removing the names of its board of directors from its website. So much for taking accountability, huh?
Still, there’s more to take away from this story than just that donors need to stop cutting checks to GLAAD. It also offers insight into how and why many LGBT activist organizations, not just GLAAD, have become so partisan and so radical.
Before Ellis took over in 2014, the New York Times reports that “GLAAD’s finances were in shambles. Its assets had dwindled as expenses far outpaced donations, which had declined steeply.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
By bringing GLAAD into radical new territory in terms of ever-expanding transgender activism, Ellis created a new cause to rally donors around after their original goals of addressing the AIDS epidemic and achieving gay equality were accomplished. And by making the organization more partisan, she ingratiated herself with more major Democratic donors and earned more media attention from outlets such as MSNBC, eager to utilize the nonprofit organization for partisan coverage.
It all came, of course, at the expense of the organization’s sanity, efficacy, and integrity. But that’s evidently a worthy trade for the likes of Ellis if it’ll get them flying first-class.
Brad Polumbo ( @Brad_Polumbo ) is an independent journalist, YouTuber , and co-founder of BASEDPolitics.
Most Popular
Comments / 0