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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Yellow Caution Tape
In all of the tributes for Walter Cronkite, who died on July 17, 2009, one aspect of his personality has been omitted: He was an advocate for the separation of church and state. And in this capacity, he came out squarely against the Defense of Marriage Act and tacitly for the right of gay Americans to marry.
In a newspaper column he wrote for King Features Syndicate in 2003, when he was 86, Cronkite wrote, “Conservatives, particularly those of the Christian right, are determined that gay marriage and all abortions must be banned by federal law, even perhaps by amendments to our Constitution.”
Massachusetts had just become the first state to legalize gay marriage. “Conservatives,” he wrote, “particularly those of the Christian right, are determined that gay marriage and all abortions must be banned by federal law, even perhaps by amendments to our Constitution.”
See Walter Cronkite: Defender of Gay Marriage
EDGE Boston
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