Doug Manchester,
chairman of Manchester Financial Group and owner of the
Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego and the San Diego Marriott
Hotel & Marina, among other properties, donated $125,000 to
support Prop. 8. Since that time, Manchester, who goes by
"Papa Doug," has seen his hotels become a victim of a
boycott organized by Californians Against Hate.
However, at
Friday's International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association
convention in Toronto, Kelly Cummerford, director of sales for
Manchester Grand Hyatt, announced that Manchester was donating
$25,000 in support of LGBT causes and an additional $100,000 in
the form of hotel credits to be used by LGBT
organizations for fund-raising events. When Cummerford, who
also announced today that he is married to a man in
the military, got up to speak he was met
with some boos and hisses from the audience.
Manchester has also
retained publicist Howard Bragman, the openly
gay public relations/crisis management veteran who was
hired by former
Grey's Anatomy
star Isaiah Washington after reportedly directing an
antigay slur at costar T.R. Knight. He has also
handled the coming-out process for Rosie Jones, the WNBA's
Sheryl Swoopes, and retired NBA player John Amaechi.
Bragman says that
$25,000 will go directly to LGBT civil rights groups, for which
a committee is forming to determine how it will be allocated.
The other $100,000 will go toward LGBT events such as
fund-raisers in the form of credit at the Grand Hyatt. Bragman,
an activist for gay rights, came out in favor of
boycotting companies who donated in favor of Proposition 8 in
an editorial he wrote for the
The Huffington Post
when an owner of the restaurant El Coyote was discovered to
have donated in favor of the measure.
But speaking of his
client, Bragman told
The Advocate
on Friday that "Mr. Manchester's beliefs were clearly
misconstrued. He did give $125,000 to Yes on 8 and he is
opposed to the concept of religious gay marriage. However, he
is in no way homophobic and is 100% in favor of gay
people having every legal right that straight people have. This
is an attempt to clarify his position."
However this effort has
not impressed Fred Karger, the head of Californians Against
Hate.
"It's an insult to
the gay and lesbian community and our labor allies that he is
attempting after 10 months to go around us and buy his way out
of this boycott," he said. Karger settled two of the
four boycotts he began against companies in the wake
of Proposition 8. High-end juicemakers Bolthouse Farms
settled after five weeks of negotiations, and now according to
Karger they have changed their company policy and have since
given $110,000 to various organizations.
Karger insists
Manchester's move is largely for show and largely
financial.
"Manchester told
[Cummerford] that he had lost $7 million due to this
boycott," he says. "If that is the number he admits
to, then I assume it is a lot higher. Our boycott has been very
effective. For example, the latest blow is the National Trial
Lawyers Association, who just announced that they were moving
their convention of 2,000 lawyers not only from
Manchester's hotel but from San Diego entirely. Their event
is in July and they are moving to San Francisco, so at great
expense to them, in order to show solidarity."
As for how the money
will be allocated Karger says he initially heard it
was going to the Human Rights Campaign, but David Smith, vice
president of programs for HRC, told him that they
turned down the money. "In either case it's a
divide-and-conquer attempt," Karger said. He added,
"It is a step but this is not the way a boycott is ended.
And though we would be happy to sit down with him at
anytime to discuss this, until then our boycott will continue
with more resolve."
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