When Doug Manchester, owner of three San Diego hotels including the Manchester Grand Hyatt, gave $125,000 to help qualify Proposition 8 for the ballot, it’s unlikely he foresaw a boycott by the GLBT community. But even if he had, he likely wouldn’t have cared. In fact, when a coalition of union labor and GLBT organizations began the Boycott Manchester campaign, internal communications leaked to the public show he didn’t.

Most estimate that, as of this month, Manchester has about seven million reasons to wish he had. That’s the estimated amount the 10-month boycott has cost him so far. The boycott is headed up by Californians Against Hate and UNITE Here Local 30 labor union and supported by San Diego Pride at Work, San Diego LGBT Pride, and many other community leaders. It’s been so successful, Manchester is now trying to make amends with the GLBT community.

To get him out of the doghouse, Manchester hired openly gay crisis PR guy, Howard Bragman from Los Angeles. It took Bragman three months to come up with his crisis PR plan – a “settlement” to end the boycott, which he announced last Friday at the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association’s (IGLTA) annual convention in Toronto, Canada.

Bragman sent Manchester’s marketing director, Kelly Commerford, to make the pitch. Commerford – making it quite clear that he is gay – announced the offer to the 350 gay and lesbian travel professionals at a Hyatt-sponsored luncheon. He said Doug Manchester would offer $25,000 to a national organization that supports domestic partnerships and civil unions and make available $100,000 in hotel credits to GLBT organizations.

The settlement – or blood money as we see it – is laughable. In Toronto, it was boo-able, and that’s exactly what those present at the luncheon did, booing and hissing Commerford right out of the luncheon. He, along with three other Hyatt executives, never returned to the convention.

On a positive note, we will say thank you to Commerford for bringing the boycott to even more travel agents’ attention. With Pride season right around the corner, we hope that national travel agents who are booking travel for GLBT folks attending Pride will be mindful of the boycott.

Things aren’t going much better for Manchester back home.

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 Bragman’s own rhetoric is troublesome on two points.

He dismisses Manchester’s views as understandable given Manchester’s age (66) and religion (Catholic). And he says lack of bridge building, not donations by wealthy donors such as Manchester, is to blame for Proposition 8’s passage. “That’s why we lost Prop. 8, not enough bridge building,” Bragman said in one press story. Sounds like a feeble attempt to justify working for one of Proposition 8’s biggest supporters. Sadly, Bragman married his partner during the summer and so has every reason to want Proposition 8 to be struck down. But it seems that all the Benjamins Manchester is throwing at him made Bragman forget his own words.

Bragman wrote a commentary for the Huffington Post last November saying, “To my brothers and sisters in the GLBT movement and our friends, I urge you to use every legal and moral tool at your disposal to change hearts and minds. Peaceful protests, boycotts and community organizing are the tools of our trade and ultimately the things that will win this struggle.”

Rather than offering lip service, perhaps Manchester should create a more direct dialogue with union and community leaders. Anyone want to invite “Papa” Doug and his new gay step-child Bragman to a town hall forum? We’d certainly be game.

As a community, we should be proud that we do not accept blood money. We do not allow money to talk its way out of hateful actions.

As a community we should stand behind the coalition of community and labor organizations as they continue the Manchester Boycott. When Manchester is prepared to meet with union and community leaders, then the real dialogue can happen. Until then, Boycott Manchester’s hotels.

As for you Mr. Manchester, let us give you some advice on what to do when you’ve made a mistake. I’m sure it’s quite similar to what you taught your children to do, as we’ve taught ours.

Say, “I’m sorry I made a mistake. I’ve realized how unAmerican it is to deny any citizen of this great country the same civil rights others are afforded. Nothing less than full civil marriage for every American is acceptable. In the beginning of this debate, as it was first explained to me, the church would be involved. Thank God we live in a country that separates those two institutions. I sincerely apologize for my misunderstanding, and to help right my wrong I am writing a check of equal value to the ‘No on 8’ campaign to level the playing field.” Sign it: Doug Manchester.

There’s no need to hire an expensive, sellout PR firm. Just a simple heartfelt apology directly from you will do. Isn’t that the way you taught your children to do the right thing? Perhaps simple and heartfelt will go a lot further than the lengths you are jumping to bridge the rift you’ve created.

The Gay & Lesbian Times supports Sen. Christine Kehoe’s endorsement of Propositions 1A through 1F to be decided by voters in the Special Election on Tuesday, May 19. See www.gaylesbiantimes.com/?id=14598