Bradley Manning won't get Pride honors

[struggle4progress]

Neal J. Riley
Published 6:08 pm, Saturday, June 8, 2013

Organizers of San Francisco's Pride celebration have made it official - they won't be doing anything to honor Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private who pleaded guilty to leaking classified documents, at the June 30 parade.

Manning was originally selected as a grand marshal by a voting group of former parade grand marshals in April. But following a backlash, the SF Pride Board of Directors quickly rescinded the honor, insisting that Manning is not qualified to be a community grand marshal because he isn't local.

After that decision sparked further protests, SF Pride held a community forum last month where dozens of speakers blasted Manning's exclusion. On Friday night, following another rally by Manning supporters attended by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, Pride released a statement saying the parade will go on without recognizing Manning.

"Over the past several weeks, SF Pride has sought to respectfully listen to and consider the various opinions and perspectives on the matter of Pfc. Bradley Manning and related interests in extending representative support for Pfc. Manning," the statement read. "The SF Pride Board of Directors recognizes the divergent opinions regarding the matter of Pfc. Manning, but none of the three main options we received from the community forum on May 31 garnered a consensus majority" ...

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bradley-Manning-won-t-get-Pride-honors-4589298.php

[brooklynite]

1. Should he?

Setting aside how you feel about his trial and actions, what has he done that it any way speaks positively of the Gay community in San Francisco or nationwide?

[NYC_SKP]

2. Didn't corporate sponsors (Clear Channel, AT&T, Verizon) put some pressure on them?

I seem to recall some news about this a month or so ago.

[boilerbabe]

3. the lady who is the head of SF Pride worked on Obama's re-election campaign

and she essentially called Manning a traiter and reorimanded the other Pride committee folks who chose him. also some gay military guys in San Diego complained about manning. lots of back and forth on facebook, there is a facebookk grouip of gays in SF who support manning and angered at this lady who runs it. the back and forths have been brutal i have been reading the facebook pages. Daniel Ellsberg was planning to stand in for Manning at the parade since Manning can't obviously be there.

[William769]

4. It's their loss.

Thankfully that board (which by the way is predominately Heterosexual now how fucked up is that?). Does not speak for the LGBT community at large, they only speak for a very small segment of the LGBT population and they are not very good at that either.

[tritsofme]

5. He deserves ridicule, not honor.

[sabrina 1]

6. He is a hero and will be honored by history, as Daniel Ellsberg already has been. And ridicule is

for morons. Justice is what he deserves, intelligent, ethical, moral people do not need to engage in ridicule of anyone, it's a shame to see grown up people reduce themselves to such primitive practices when we have a system of justice that was based on fairness and a presumption of innocence. Sometimes I wonder why we don't just get rid of it and go back to the old mob rule. It seems to be what Americans prefer.