Comments on: Boycotted Hotelier Looking For Resolution

By: jam

jam — Sun, 10 May 2009 18:30:45 +0000

Gay couples – (who want to get married) have money. This hotelier wants the money of gay people, yet doesn’t want to give them the same rights.

The gay population took him to task for this view, and it played out exactly as it should. Nothing more should be done…

By: CLS

CLS — Sat, 09 May 2009 20:04:59 +0000

The press release I got from Karger was quite disappointing. He made it clear that no settlement was possible with the gay community (himself) because the issue was not about the gay community but whether Karger would give the unions what they want. Karger was putting the interests of trade unions first.

By: Tara the antisocial

Tara the antisocial — Sat, 09 May 2009 04:35:08 +0000

Hey, I’ve got a great idea – he can give us his hotel, and we’ll give him a Motel 6 in exchange.

That pretty much the same as trading marriage for civil unions.

By: PeeJ

PeeJ — Sat, 09 May 2009 00:32:10 +0000

Zeke is right on target.

Why is he so eager to “get out from under the boycott,” one wonders. Could it be that he’s losing lots of business? The bad publicity? No org. on “our side” should accept his offer. In fact, they should make a big deal of refusing it. A very big deal.

What I’m saying is, people need to learn that their actions have consequences. Manchester makes for an excellent object lesson.

By: Zeke

Zeke — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:58:00 +0000

So let me get this straight. After giving $125,000 DIRECTLY to the anti-marriage campaign he feels that it would be compensatory to give $25,000 to a group that fights to do EXACTLY what Prop 8 did (give gay people domestic partnerships/civil unions but not calling it marriage); and $100,000 of “free” stuff, like convention discounts, to gay organizations that would bring millions of dollars worth of room rentals, bar tabs, etc. with their conventions?

This is just about the most insulting mea culpa I have ever seen.

The ONLY people who would benefit from this ridiculous “deal” would be Manchester and those pushing for “separate but (not really) equal” civil rights for gays.

You would have to be a fool not to see through this. Come to think of it, it’s exactly the kind of nonsense that Geoff Kors and Equality California would eat up.

By: Eddie89

Eddie89 — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:39:08 +0000

Manchester should donate $125,000 U.S. dollars to Courage Campaign!

That’s fair!

By: Tavdy

Tavdy — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:48:16 +0000

If Manchester wants to make happy with the gay community he needs to undo the damage he’s done – and he should start by making a donation-matching pledge to Courage.

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:05:22 +0000

I would settle for $125,000 given to an organization, perhaps Courage Campaign, so that they can collect signatures for a constitutional amendment reversing Proposition 8.

That would be exactly identical to his previous action.

This sounds to me like he wants to stay on record as opposed to marriage equality but doesn’t want to pay any price for that stance. He wants to fund a group that shares his anti-marriage position.

And as for “store credit”, that’s not equivalent to cash. It’s not even close to the same. $100K in services doesn’t cost him $100K. And the services are all an expense that can be deducted from his taxable profit while his out-of-pocket contribution to Prop 8 was post taxes. When considered together, his $100K store credit only costs him about $25K.

By: Nick Literski

Nick Literski — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:04:37 +0000

Yes, Maggie and her minions will present this as the “poor businessman, just trying to make a living in this tough economy,” being “blackmailed” by “eeee-vil homosexuals.”

By: jOHN

jOHN — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:57:43 +0000

This hardly appears to be enough and not equal at all to his original donation.

For one thing I would say he should make his contribution double what was contributed originally to make amends. He did cause a set back and it should be in cash as his original donation! At the least the cash portion should be matching his original donation and the additional could be the hotel credit.

Let’s face it the hotel credit does not cost him the actual value of the credit and it would be for space that chances are would have been empty anyway! Maybe provide some retail space for an HRC store to show his real understanding of equality and have it be seen by all his customers.