The Human Rights Campaign is the largest national lesbian and gay political organization. The group lobbies Congress, provides campaign support and educates the public on behalf of lesbian and gay Americans.

"President Clinton's participation at this event will be historic," said Elizabeth Birch, HRC's executive director. "The president's attendance will mark the first time a sitting president has participated at a gay and lesbian civil rights event."

In addition to Clinton's keynote address, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the legislative arm of this country's historic civil rights movement, will receive one of HRC's National Civil Rights Awards. Dr. Dorothy Height, chairperson of LCCR, will be accepting the award.

Actress Ellen DeGeneres and her partner, Anne Heche, will also be attending the event. DeGeneres will also be accepting an HRC National Civil Rights Award for her historic and very public coming out last spring.

Recently HRC named DeGeneres' mother, Betty, as the organization's National Coming Out Project spokesperson.

The sold-out national dinner will take place at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington and will be attended by 1,500 guests.

Last year, President Clinton provided a videotaped message to the Human Rights Campaign's OutVote convention during the 1996 campaign. That event was designed to inspire volunteer involvement in political campaigns for state and federal office seekers who are supportive of equal rights for lesbian and gay people.

The dinner occurs two days before the first White House Conference on Hate Crimes, scheduled for Nov. 10. The conference will examine bias-motivated crime and seeks to find solutions to curb this escalating social problem which is one of HRC's highest priorities.

Not all are as pleased as HRC's leadership about the President's projected presence at the November HRC banquet. ACT UP-D.C. members say they are "appalled" and cite Clinton's "five year record of broken promises and lies." The AIDS activists also say they are "disgusted" that the HRC would "honor Clinton", whose record on gay and AIDS-related issues has been less than stellar, and have issued several critiques, including concerns about HRC's back-room deals they believe have thawrted progress on gay and AIDS issues.

In their approach to the November 8 dinner, the Washington, D.C. AIDS activists cite a long list of "broken promises and betrayals" under Clinton, including: increased witch hunts expelling Lesbian and Gay service members from the US military under Clinton's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, signing into law the Christian Coalition-inspired Defense of Marriage Act, signing into law travel restrictions and a ban on immigration for persons living with HIV, failing to implement the promised Manhattan-Project to develop a cure for AIDS, firing Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders for promoting safe sex, refusing to lift the federal funding ban for life-saving needle exchange programs, failing to appoint a cabinet-level AIDS czar to lead the nation's war on AIDS, launching an assault on physicians who recommend marijuana to their patients.

The record speaks for itself. "Cocktail parties don't save lives," states ACT UP's Wayne Turner. "We've spent the past five years holding Bill Clinton accountable, trying to hold his feet to the fire. The HRC is simply providing political cover for a President who has failed people with AIDS. They do our cause more harm than good."

ACT UP Washington members have refused to disclose any plans for protests---except to say that activists will use the event as a forum to expose the Clinton legacy. Concludes ACT UP Washington's Steve Michael, "Bill Clinton has not earned the right to speak before Gay and Lesbians Americans. His five year record of lip service and lies speak loud enough."

Another activist group, GLAA, with a 26-year history in the nation's capital has rushed to HRC's defense.

Rick Rosendall, president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, Washington D.C.'s longest-lived activist organization, responded to what he called ACT UP's anti-HRC demagoguery.

"With HRC's help," said the GLAA president, " we have had a remarkable degree of success in the past few years in blocking obnoxious amendments (including attempts by Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Arkansas) to prohibit adoptions by unmarried partners); HRC deserves our thanks and respect for this, not denunciations for their failures.... If 'inside baseball' is not the only valid approach to activism, we should nonetheless be glad that someone is committed to doing it year in and year out as HRC has done.

"It is true," he reflects, "that HRC is placing its emphasis -- with its online action center -- on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). While I may disagree at times with HRC priorities or political judgments, I can only applaud its sustained focus on this pro-gay legislation that is widely considered to have the best chance (such as it is) of passage in the near term."

"ACT UP Washington's activism-by-press-release, with its almost daily changes in focus and direction, makes one question whether they are more concerned with getting attention than with getting something done. Of course, even the attention-getting dimishes as more and more people grow tired of the same self-indulgent, disruptive tactics. Yelling in the street and getting arrested may have their place, but they are no substitutes for a practical strategy that includes legislation, litigation, and persuasion. (And by the way, getting attention is not the same as winning people over.)"

"GLAA's credibility," says Rosendall, "is backed up by a 26-year record of achievement. GLAA's history is online at http://www.glaa.org/timeline.html )"

"By all means," he implores, "let's have constructive criticism where it is due, but let's also keep in mind who our true enemies are. In this case, the charges against HRC are simply not true. If ACT UP Washington wants to know why so many people avoid dealing with them, they should take a good look at their own behavior in this case."