Raul Alvillar has been named White
House interim LGBT liaison, gay
weekly the Washington
Blade
reported.
Alvillar will temporarily replace Brian
Bond, who is trading his administration post for a position at the
Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A permanent replacement is expected in
October, White House Spokesman Shin Inouye told the paper.
Thirty-three-year-old Alvillar is
openly gay and comes from the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, where he has served two-and-a-half years. He assisted
during the 2008 presidential campaign with LGBT outreach.
Alvillar “has been with President
Obama since the earliest days of the campaign,” David Smith, vice
president of programs at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), said in a
statement. Smith added he felt the president is well advised on LGBT
issues and does not “anticipate these changes to cause any
problems.”
Gay
glossy The
Advocate notes that outgoing Bond is openly HIV-positive and
he blogged about the administration's work on HIV/AIDS issues as
“very personal for me.”
“This anniversary is an opportunity
to recommit ourselves to raising awareness about HIV/AIDS,” he
wrote in a June post on the 30th
anniversary of the AIDS pandemic. “We owe it to those that are
no longer with us.”