It might be useful to revisit the issue of Prop. 8 boycotts, now that the post-election fever has died down a bit. At least two boycotts are still in effect and in the news. The Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Diego is the subject of a boycott because its owner, Doug Manchester, gave $125,000 in seed money to get the initiative off the ground. But for Manchester's very generous donation early on, when it counted most, Prop. 8 might have gone nowhere. Bill Clinton spoke there on Sunday while protesters complained outside.
In Sacramento, Leatherby's Family Creamery, a well-established ice cream shop, is also still subject to a boycott because the family gave $20,000 to support Prop. 8. The owner, Alan Leatherby, says that while the emotions have faded, he still sees effects of the boycott more than three months after the election.
The first thing to note is that neither of these is a case of a donor giving a small amount to Prop. 8. The furor after Prop. 8 centered on people who had given tiny amounts of money and experienced consequences out of proportion to their contribution. But that legitimate concern overshadowed the issue of taking action against larger donors. Yes, there is unfairness in targeting $100 and $250 donors. But is it also unfair to boycott donors of $20,000 and $125,000? That question got lost, and shouldn't have.
The second point is that there is a difference between Leatherby and Manchester. Alan Leatherby is comfortable defending his donation publicly, and says he answers emails and phone calls about his donation. He had lunch with a 70-year old gay man who contacted him. In contrast, Manchester, like many other large donors, seems to have disappeared into an undisclosed secure location.
I can respect Leatherby. I won't be patronizing his shop, since I believe he is wrong and misunderstands the religious text we share. But he is willing to discuss his beliefs, and that is both honorable and civic-minded. Manchester, and those who won't personally engage the debate at all, are the real danger, not only to gay rights, but to democracy. No one is obliged to articulate their reasoning, but given the size of his donation, Manchester's silence suggests either that he does not have a defense or, more disturbingly, does not care about the consequences of his donation.
In this, Manchester is like Bill Clinton, who hid behind a spokesman and, himself, remained silent in his speech at the hotel about why there were protesters outside. I was a strong supporter of Clinton, and truly believed he understood gay equality, but was confounded by the high-wire of this issue's politics. But now it increasingly appears he really does not care very much, like Doug Manchester, about the damage he causes. I'm not sure how you boycott an ex-president, but I'm wondering if that might be possible.
7 Comments for “Prop. 8 Boycotts, Take Two”
posted by TS on
Supremely well put, David. 9 out of 10 times on these kind of issues, chart a good center course and you’ll be reasonable.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
Men who are rich and powerful really don’t concern themselves with any consequences, because there are none, really.
Gay people, like blacks before them, make up a minority class that really has never had any socio/political or economic independence from the dominant culture.
Only the most brutally graphic of clips and media information from the civil rights rallies, forced the hand of our President and Attorney General (the Kennedys) to engage federal protection as well as investigations into violence and intimidation of blacks exercising their rights as citizens.
The PR problem of such violence couldn’t give cred to Kennedy, who had foreign leaders requiring criticism of THEIR human rights violations.
But gay men and women are similar victims of their civility.
The legal, orderly and considerably peaceful rallies were turned into riots and acts of violence for the more prurient audiences around the country.
Boycotts, rallies…addressing the government over grievances are all legal, even encouraged.
But EVERYTHING gay people do is called an ‘attack’. An act of threatening disobedience and violence.
The most innocuous of behaviors, to simply challenging unfair discrimination: our side is hard pressed to find any reason or rationality no matter WHAT argument is presented.
I find myself exhausted at just what a Sisyphian responsibility this all is.
The perpetuity of minority status should in itself be motive for the government to protect gay people. Fear based political strategy that leads to fear based public policy should be rejected by voters AND the courts.
Which is what Prop. 8’s opposition engaged in.
There was MUCH anger expressed here over the situation with El Coyote restaurant, however small the contribution, but Marj Christofferson avoided an opportunity to LEARN from WHY she was criticized in the first place.
I was personally abused here and accused of things I didn’t do.
But I didn’t hide from it, but addressed it directly.
Something, as pointed out, the opposition won’t do.
They won’t engage the very people they hurt directly and that is the utmost of cowardice.
But also the sort of arrogance that they feel assured of being above all accountability because gay people require integration into the mainstream for success.
BTW, as much as there has been running criticism of gay people boycotting the restaurant and endangering the business, it has not in fact suffered any great losses that can be attributed directly TO gay people.
The general bad economy can, but of course, no one in the conservative press is going to clarify that, but instead exploit economic downturns in some areas to blame gay people.
Clinton isn’t running for office, has no fear of offending a minority that he doesn’t feel would garner enough votes for a difference in outcomes.
Even for his wife in 2012.
Gay people don’t seem to matter, except as an INITIAL money machine BEFORE it’s too late to take it back, but certainly NOT as a voting bloc.
And have gay folks EVER really had a political forerunner they’ve been able to trust who hasn’t gotten their money first and ignored them later?
The Clintons STILL have loyal gay supporters, no matter how much they’ve dodged dealing with their gay constituents until they absolutely have to.
How grudging of them.
I still wonder, if we took the Mormon missionary approach and went door to door, block by block in twos or more on an educational mission with our best and brightest?
We are not teaching about a religious intangible, but a forthright educational tangible.
Commercials that aren’t around a political issue might be a way to go in anticipation of engaging the public and mainstream that way.
Any thoughts here on that?
The mountain won’t come to Mohammed, so to speak.
And it’s too easy to avoid what looks like a mob outside the door with sign carrying protests.
So, perhaps the other strategy is face by face, person to person.
Feels like that’s all we have left without the power brokers running for cover.
posted by Jorge on
I could not care less whether a large donor defends his positions in public or not. If he’s not willing to accept the consequences of his donation publicly, then yes that’s his right. So now that he’s exposed there is ample opportunity to make him pay the consequences privately. Why should the right to privacy mean less for a private individual just because of how affluent he is?
So I say, but this is the very reason Bill O’Reilly puts the crosshairs on progressive financer George Soros so often. A big part of it is the stealth aspect in which very rich people create a powerful political effect in this country.
posted by Bobby on
Some gays are getting pretty desperate if their tactics now include attacking big and small donors. Doing this only proves everything homophobes say about gays. What’s the point of some feel-good protests if they only create more animosity?
Making a donation doesn’t make you a public figure. Unlike George Soros, Doug Manchester is not a public figure. What if everyone who donated against prop-8 faced the same kind of harassment than the anti-gay marriage people are facing? Would we be defending them then?
posted by CPT_Doom on
Um, IIRC, the “Yes on 8” people sent out extortion letters before the election to businesses who sent $$ to the “No on 8” campaign, demanding equal donations to the “Yes” side, or the businesses names would be made public. Thankfully, most of the businesses said “OK, publicize my name” because they had no problem defending their donations.
Outside of the protest at the Mexican restaurant in Weho, where protesters did demand the anti-gay employee or the business donate to the “No” campaign, such extortion attempts have not been part of our boycotts. The boycotts we are talking about are simply a refusal to give business to those who support bigotry.
Interestingly, when white Northerners picketed national chain stores for their refusal to integrate their Southern stores during the 60s and 70s, no one complained they had no right of protest.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Outside of the protest at the Mexican restaurant in Weho, where protesters did demand the anti-gay employee or the business donate to the “No” campaign, such extortion attempts have not been part of our boycotts.
Oh really?
Karger says a “soft boycott” his group had started against Bolthouse Farms ? which gave $100,000 to Prop. 8 ? was dropped after he reached a settlement with the company. Bolthouse Farms was to give an equal amount of money to gay rights political causes. The amount ultimately equaled $110,000.
Thus, what we see is that CPT_Doom and the rest of the gay liberal left clapped and cheered as No on 8 and its groups demanded equal contributions, but screamed “extortion” when the Yes on 8 group did exactly the same thing — AFTER No on 8 did it.
posted by RFM80 on
I just want to say that I voted YES on Prop 8 for the simple fact that the notion of men wanting to marry men, and women wanting to marry woman is unbiblical. Any argument or reason for voting NO would be calling God a liar. There are a lot of things in the bible that once learned you feel compelled to argue against, but either you change your opinion to agree with what the bible says or you do not. Either way, we will all stand before our creator on judgement day. If I may, I would like to share a verse that I think is very relevent to this case…Philippians 4:6-7. God bless all of you and I continue to pray about the matter at hand.