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Loading ...Bill Clinton blasted for speaking at hotel owned by Prop 8 supporter
02.13.2009 2:09pm EST
(San Diego, California) Former President Bill Clinton has come under fire from California gay rights groups for speaking to a trade group at a hotel being boycotted for its owner’s support of Proposition 8, the measure passed last November which bans same-sex marriage in the state.
Clinton is scheduled to address the annual convention of the International Franchise Association at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego on Sunday.The hotel’s owner, Douglas Manchester, contributed $125,000 to the Proposition 8 campaign.
Following passage of Prop 8, gay activists mounted a campaign to boycott the hotel. Several groups already have canceled conventions at the hotel – costing Manchester’s facility an estimated $2 million.
Among those who bailed out of meeting at the hotel are conventions for the International Foundation of Employee Benefits, the San Diego Board of Realtors, the American Assn. of Law Schools and the California Nurses Association.
The California State Bar Association is under pressure to cancel its annual convention at the hotel.
Gay rights advocates will protest Clinton’s speech Sunday outside the hotel.
“Public officials must lead by example,” San Diego Councilman Todd Gloria told The Los Angeles Times. “I hope President Clinton respects the importance of this issue and moves his speech.”
A spokesperson for the former President told the Associated Press that while the former president sticks by his views about gay rights, he plans to honor his commitment to give the speech.
Clinton has a mixed record on LGBT issues. He signed the federal Defense of Marriage Act which bars the US government from recognizing same-sex couples, saying at the time he saw it as a way of stopped a proposed amendment to the US Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Clinton also signed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” which bars gays from serving openly in the military. He said that the bill was a compromise to an all out bar on gays that would result in a witch hunt of homosexuals in the armed forces.
GO GAY !!!
He’s an opportunist pig. Always was, always will be.
Hmmm…That’s an interesting set of principles Mr. Burgoon. It truly is a pity that ALL “churches” don’t practice the same ideals. Me being an atheist I can’t personally understand why people can’t embrace these same charitable values WITHOUT belief in a afterlife or the lure of “immortality”.
“A spokesperson for the former President told the Associated Press that while the former president sticks by his views about gay rights, he plans to honor his commitment to give the speech.”
+ Yeah, he’s proved to us over and over again that he does not give a crap about anyone that is gay or lesbian.
It’s very disappointing that you choose to speak at a hotel owned by a Prop 8 supporter. This is not the first time this type of thing hjas happened but I can sure HOPE it is the last!!!
DOMA. DADT. Clinton is the National Saint of Homophobes.
he could give his speech on the sidewalk and still honor his commitment
Gods, what some fags forget.
For starters, Clinton was the BEST friend the LGBT community had in the White House. It was HIS plan to completely end the outright ban on gays serving AT ALL that got torpedoed by the fucking Dems in Congress (mainly Sam Nunn) which led to the eventual DADTDP compromise.
As to DOMA, do you sorry shits think that Clinton had any real choice? Fact facts. When DOMA came along, the Congress (both House AND Senate) were SOLIDLY in GOP control, and there were enough DEMOCRATS who supported DOMA to guarantee an override of a Clinton veto. (And, I’ll just about guarantee that an override of Clinton’s veto would’ve made it much easier for a Federal Amendment banning ANY recognition of same-sex unions of ANY sort.)
Of course, you anti-Clinton shits are willing to let Obama’s anti-same-sex stance slip by. That MF couldn’t summon the courage to offer support for the “No on 8″ movement, leaving the most minimal scraps of support to mealy-mouthed Biden. Of course, Obama was the one who PERSONALLY invited (ex-gay, anti-gay) Rev Donnie McClurkin for his little tour of South Carolina in 2007 (and Obama claimed he didn’t know anything about McClurkin’s views, and he’d only invited McClurkin because of McClurkin’s “popularity” with black evangelicals). Then, of course, there was Obama’s long-term “friendship” with anti-gay Rev James Meeks (do a search on Meeks to find out how this “friend of Obama” felt about gays as recently as 2006) as well as his long-term “friendship” with “Uncle” Jeremiah Wright.
Then, there’s Obama relationship with Doug Kmiec. That’s right, the man who was very involved with the “Yes on 8″ campaign was also invited by Obama to head up a faith-based outreach program LAST [FREAKING] YEAR.
Then, let’s not forget the African-American culpability with Prop 8. These folks, according to exit polls, voted for Obama by well over 95%, and also voted FOR Prop 8 by as much as 70%. African-American Evangelical leaders (who’d gone for Bush in 2004) openly said they NEEDED to support Obama in spite of his “liberal” record, simply because Obama’s “black”.
But, yeah. You sorry pieces of crap just bash Bill all you want. Your guy Obama’s the one who invited Rick Warren to offer the invocation prayer at the inauguration and when Rev Robinson got his scraps from the Obama Inaugural Committee, mysteriously, his speech didn’t make the initial TV broadcast.
Obama’s going to screw over the LGBT community time and again (he’s already said he’s won’t pursue any action on DADT until at least 2010–and it won’t happen that year since mid-term elections will be taking place) but you folks will just let him slide instead of holding his feet to the fire.
Don’t forget either that Candidate Obama NEVER participated in any gay pride parade (at no point during his time in the Illinois Senate, the US Senate, or the time he was running for the White House), unlike his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, who attended a number of Pride Parades over the years.
Bill and Hillary are NOT friends to the GLBT community and have no respect for civil rights. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was the single most regressive piece of legislation ever passed and Bill’s and Hillary’s “regrets” and admitting that its passage was a “mistake” are too little, too late. DADT contributed to Al Gore’s deservedly losing the presidential election in 2000 and to Hillary’s deservedly losing the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Even so, they don’t get it.
Now Bill continues to demonstrate a lack of respect for GLBT people and civil rights by speaking at a hotel owned by a biggot! Move the event to a neutral venue or don’t go to it! No excuses for biggotry, Bill!
And let’s bash Bill, Hillary, Al gore and Barry Obama every time they screw up, until they do get it. These are seriously stupid people and we need to keep hitting them over the head with a two by four until they wise up!
We need to start voting for OWN people on the LOCAL levels! Do NOT give these republicrat creeps ANY of your hard earned dollars so they can simply turn around and shell it back out to all of our enemies. If you belong to this fraud of a political party I STRONGLY suggest you leave IMMEDIATELY. Upon leaving, kindly inform these “democrats” that you can no longer stomach their disgusting hypocrisy! There must be GAY PROGRESSIVE candidates out there somewhere that we can be supporting instead! Yes, it must begin on the LOCAL level. Something I have yet to grasp is why the f**k do we not have complete control of San Francisco yet? Ya know, GAY mayor, GAY board of supervisors? Is that city not OUR mecca???? It’s like we’ve only been there for at least 40+ years now yet with the exception of our brave trailblazer Harvey Milk do we actually have many GAY officials in office there? I scratch my noggin from time to time pondering this fact! If any city in this country should be firmly in our control by now it SHOULD be San Francisco!!! This is a PRIME example of MISdirected priorities! Remember folks: THINK local, ACT global!
Am not surprised either. Getting his big fat fee supercedes any decency to not use the venue. Expect nothing from the Dems, they use us, abuse us by not delivering and take our votes for granted, including Obama. We need to send them a loud message……come 2012, don’t count on us any longer. I’m sick and tired of being taken advantage of for the sake of their political expediency.
Public officials lead by example???
Clinton is the man who gave us both Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell AND the ‘Defense’ of Marriage Act.
He DID ‘lead’ by his ‘example’. Why anyone thinks Mr. Clinton is a friend of the gay community is beyond me.
There is some great news that some of us are missing here- the hotel has lost $2 million in business due to the owner’s donation. I am sure that the owner will think twice about donating money to bigoted causes now that he realizes that his wallet will be getting smaller every time he does so. These kinds of boycotts are exactly what we need to be doing, along with other things, to prevent anything like Prop 8 from ever happening again.
Hillary Clinton was the first of her senator to march in a gay pride parade. That means nothing right? Your precious smug obama got a hair cut when it was gay pride in chicago. The man went to ever other parade on the face of the earth, just not for the gays in his own backyard.
The Clintons are huge friends to the gays. I’m sure you all order from Dominos, which contributes to the right wing gay haters more than Bill ever has or would. Please. Pathetic.
Sometimes we are our own worst enemys!!! We bitch and bitch if we can’t have it 100%. It isn’t ever going to happen. Too may opinions. So now Obama doesn’t agree with us on the marriage issue, so now he’s an enemy?? Its a wonder we can find any allies. If he gives us 50%. He’s still better than Bush or most Republicans-who may give us 5% if were lucky. So lets focus on more of whats right, not only on whats wrong.