San Diego Activists Refuse To End Boycott Of Manchester Hotels

Last week San Diego hotelier Doug Manchester offered the LGBT community a total of $125K in cash and room credits to call off their year-long boycott, which arose over Manchester's financial backing of Proposition 8. The offer came via famed gay PR king Howard Bragman, whom Manchester had hired for the project. But nobody is biting.

The Human Rights Campaign announced it would not accept the $25,000, and Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate says his coalition is not budging. Manchester’s offer of $100,000 in hotel credits and services merely seeks to divide the GLBT community on the boycott, he says. Manchester and Bragman had hoped to bypass such boycott organizers by taking the offer right to gay travel professionals, the press and the blogosphere, and at first some may have been tempted by his offer of $100,000 in free hotel credits to deserving San Diego GLBT groups and puzzled by his sudden concern about local GLBT groups.

After all, it’s a very difficult time for nonprofits, and that kind of gesture is not insignificant. Bragman was banking on groups taking advantage of the free room and meeting credits crossing the picket lines. In turn, he hoped Manchester could claim he was actually helping local groups and thereby marginalize Karger and his coalition.But Karger and his coalition of community and union leaders stood firm. No local organization would cross a picket line or take money. With the boycott as well known as it is, who would even show up for the event, knowing there is an ongoing GLBT and labor boycott?

And the boycott, which insiders say has cost the company millions, rolls on.