At a press conference
last Friday,
GLBT activists and
union leaders marked the one-year anniversary of the Manchester Hyatt
Boycott, launched last year in response to
hotel owner Doug Manchester’s $125,000 contribution to qualify Proposition 8 for the ballot.
“For over a year we have urged San Diegans,
Californians and Americans to
boycott the Manchester Hyatt because of Manchester’s contribution to Proposition 8 and onerous
workloads for the hotel’s
housekeepers,” said
Cleve Jones, a national
gay leader and former aid to slain
San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk. “The hotel’s own
people have admitted to losing over $7 million in business due to the
boycott. This
boycott has truly shown the power of our reenergized community and the alliance between the
gay community and labor.”
Proposition 8 eliminated the right of same-
sex couples to marry in California.
Boycott organizers also committed to continue the
boycott and expand its scope.
“One of our
goals for the next year will be to take the
boycott to the next level – global,” said
Fred Karger, founder of
Californians Against Hate. “We will ask
travel planners and tour operators throughout the world not to
book meetings and room nights at the Manchester properties. We will put up a virtual bright
yellow caution tape around Manchester’s
hotels, and ask
people not to cross it.”
The
boycott has drawn increasing
media attention and picked up
steam since it began. Early on, several
groups announced that they would move or cancel
events at the hotel. Recently, the American Association of Justice, a trial
lawyers group moved its entire convention out of the Manchester Hyatt to
San Francisco to honor the
boycott. At a recent
gay and
lesbian travel exposition, a hotel
spokesperson confirmed that the
boycott has cost the hotel more than $7 million.
At the
July 17 press conference,
organizers unveiled more than just a
new approach. They came with a new logo and visual aid – bright
yellow caution tape reading “Do not cross. Do not support
bigotry and
discrimination.”
Organizers say the caution tape is intended as a reminder for individuals throughout the country not to patronize the hotel.
“We want to send a very
simple message to all those planning to travel to
San Diego that the Manchester Hyatt
Boycott is on and stronger than ever,” said
Human Relations Commissioner, Nicole Murray-Ramirez. “The
unions, hotel workers and
gay community started this fight together and we intend to finish it together.”
See Gay activists and union leaders commit to year two of Hyatt Boycott
Gay and Lesbian Times
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With all the media coverage lately around Gay Pride events, as well as around marriage equality, it is ironic that so little is really known about the lives and health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. This lack of specific information on the LGBT community is not just an academic problem; policymakers, especially those in government, demand real numbers to document the existence of problems. This is particularly true in these tough economic times, as funders, government officials and state agencies rightly demand efficient programs that are targeted like laser beams on specific, documented problems. In this context as with so many things, knowledge equals power: the power to allocate resources and work to fix these problems.
At the national level, researchers have estimated that LGBT people lag behind on seven of the ten targets set by the U.S. government to improve health nationally, called Healthy People 2010. In New York City, we know that LGBT lag behind on at least six of NYC’s health goals, called Take Care New York. However, most states do not measure sexual orientation on their health surveys, and none have consistently measured gender identity.
As researchers and advocates, we are working to change that. In our recent work funded by the New York State Department of Health interviewing 60 experts in health and human services and surveying 3,500 LGBT New Yorkers about their health and human service needs, we have found some striking disparities between their experiences and those of non-LGBT people. Empire State Pride Agenda has just this week published these findings in a report entitled “LGBT Health and Human Service Needs in New York State.”
See New Study Finds Gap in LGBT Health Services
Huffington Post
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San Francisco has asked a federal judge to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage, allying the city with a lawsuit that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
In papers filed Thursday night in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office argued that Proposition 8 was motivated by hatred of gays and lesbians and violates their constitutional right to be free of discrimination.
Although sponsors of the November ballot measure said they were trying to promote traditional marriage and protect children, “excluding same-sex couples from marriage does nothing to advance those goals,” Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart said in the 49-page brief.
Prop. 8’s “real aim (was) harming gays and lesbians and expressing moral disapproval of them,” Stewart said.
In arguing to throw out Prop. 8, Stewart cited the Supreme Court’s 1996 ruling that struck down Colorado’s ban on state and local gay-rights measures and said a law motivated by hostility toward gays and lesbians is unconstitutional.
See S.F. asks federal judge to toss Prop. 8
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(New York) After years on the defensive during the Bush administration, the National Organization for Women is elated to have a president sharing many of its goals. Yet NOW heads into its own leadership contest - a sharp contrast of age and race - mindful of the need to energize …
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