Just as The Gays hate it when anyone violates their boycott on Doug Manchester’s Hyatt Hotel — even Bill Clinton — it turns out America’s homos are going to violate a hotel boycott of their own: the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association’s annual conference this weekend in San Francisco will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, which is in the middle of a protest by its employees over labor negotiations. But the show will go on, the LGBT media group says: Canceling the event would mean they lose out on the $150,000 deal they put in place with the hotel three years ago, and would bankrupt them.
John (CA)
Criticizing Clinton, Republicans, black journalists, and others for crossing a picket line at the San Diego Hyatt during an active labor dispute, and then doing it yourself at the San Francisco Hyatt a short time later, is fundamentally hypocritical. The gay media can cite all the cost analyses and statistics they want, but there’s no way around the fact that this comes off as a major case of “do as we say, not as we do.”
CJ
If they’re going to make exceptions for themselves, did they permit exceptions for the other groups for similar purposes?
the crustybastard
If this union has helped with gay civil rights issues in the past, I’d probably be able to muster up a damn to give.
But given how left-wing groups seldom understand the concept of reciprocity — particularly as applied to gay rights — that seems surpassingly unlikely.
Did this union, say, contribute tangible assistance in defeating Prop 8?
Sceth
@John (CA):
John, you chastise a picket-line-crosser when you want their sympathy. You cross the picket line when you decline to adopt the issue (unless you’re afraid or something like that). Those various groups need not all approve of each other, and it is possible [and I hope] that the NLGJA declines an opinion on these union folks. Sorry to be so pedantic, but you needed it. In calling out ‘hypocrisy,’ your logic would hold if that gay media group made some blanket statement that crossing a picket line is inherently bad. Unlikely, much?
All that aside, fiscal duress would justify their action regardless of the nature of the protest. Their smartest move was the least explicitly opinionated one; fail.
Bareback Hussein Osama
I am owned by unions, so crossing any picket line is a no-no!
John (CA)
@Sceth: Spoken like a true conservative.
Though I would never accuse you of being “pedantic” here because that implies you had actual knowledge to show off. Maybe you should go back to doing what you do best (i.e. mocking civil rights leaders, anti-black rants).
It was gays and lesbians who approached the AFL-CIO in San Diego and asked to join forces against Manchester’s Hyatt. The union was enthusiastic in its support. Not only did they agree to hold a joint boycott, they even filed a brief before the California Supreme Court asking it to reject Prop. 8. Members of the same gay press egged them on too. The vast majority of these papers and websites wrote approvingly of the alliance with labor. But never mind that, the cocktail party must go on.
GOProud never approved of the boycott in the first place. No one expects them to care about a picket line. Most of the LGBT journalists attending this conference are another story entirely.