The Gay Rights National Lobby was a Washington D.C.-based gay rights advocacy organization which existed in the late 1970s into the early 1980s. It was founded in 1976, and both GRNL and the

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force The National LGBTQ Task Force is an American social justice advocacy non-profit organizing the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Also known as The Task Force, the organization supports act ...

were among the earliest organizations to engage in lobbying legislators for lesbian and gay rights.

History

Among notable members were

Steve Endean Stephen Robert "Steve" Endean (August 6, 1948 – August 4, 1993) was an American gay rights activist, first in Minnesota, then nationally. Early life He was born in Davenport, Iowa, and came to Minnesota to attend the University of Minne ...

, the one-time Director of the GRNL (1978-?) who established the Human Rights Campaign Fund (now the

Human Rights Campaign The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGB ...

) in 1980 to raise funds for gay-supportive congressional candidates, and former Maryland Republican congressman

Robert Bauman Robert E. Bauman (born April 4, 1937) is an American lawyer and politician. He is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland's 1st congressional district (1973–1981). Bauman was a prominent conservative advocate in the ...

, who had been

outed Outing is the act of disclosing an LGBT person's sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. It is often done for political reasons, either to instrumentalize homophobia in order to discredit political opponents or to com ...

in 1980 by a sex scandal and lost his seat before briefly becoming a lobbyist for the GRNL. Among its campaigns alongside the NGLTF was the successful campaign against the "Family Protection Act", a proposed legislation against gay people promoted by the

Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over D ...

in 1981-82. The GRNL merged with the HRC in 1985, bringing with it many lobbyists and establishing the HRC as the premiere LGBT rights lobbying organization at the federal level in the United States for some time to come. In October 1986, the HRC created two separate organizations, the HRC Foundation (as an educational arm) and the HRC PAC (the campaign fundraising arm), in order to focus the HRC proper on lobbying efforts in the spirit of the GRNL.

References

{{Authority control LGBT political advocacy groups in the United States