Por Leslie Wolf Branscomb

It’s safe to say that hotel developer Douglas Manchester regrets his decision to contribute $125,000 to the Proposition 8 campaign to ban gay marriage.

In fact, his spokesman said so in a recent interview. Repeatedly.

“He has continuously apologized,” said Kelly Commerford, spokesman for the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel. “Everyone makes mistakes and he’s recognized it.”

California voters passed Prop. 8 in November, outlawing same-sex marriage.

Commerford said Manchester, a devout Catholic, was asked to make the donation by his church. To make amends, Manchester has offered a matching amount of funds to gay and lesbian organizations and has pledged to “continue to reach out and do supportive things for the gay community,” Commerford said.

But no amount of retroactive soul-searching on Manchester’s part has so far placated local gay marriage proponents, who continue to call for a boycott of Manchester’s Grand Hyatt and his other hotels.

Organizers upped the stakes June 17, on the eve of San Diego’s annual Pride parade, by announcing that not only would the one-year-old boycott continue, but that it will go global.

At a press conference in front of the Manchester Grand Hyatt, Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate, unveiled posters — in Japanese and Spanish as well as English –depicting the hotel surrounded by yellow caution tape with the words “please do not cross” and “don’t support bigotry and discrimination.”

Karger said the first year of the boycott was a success, and said they’d persuaded at least 12 big conventions booked at the hotel to cancel. Karger said a hotel spokesman told him the boycott had cost the hotel at least $7 million.

“This thing really did take on a life of its own,” Karger said. “It’s been very, very successful.”

Commerford wouldn’t confirm the dollar figure, saying the hotel would not not publicly release its financial information.

He did say the hotel was hurt recently by cancellations of the International Employee Benefits Association and the American Association of Justice, which took its convention to San Francisco instead. The justice association had booked 7,000 rooms, and the hotel held that space open for them for seven years, Commerford said.

He said the rooms were eventually resold, although at a lower rate. “The only thing that hurt was the employees who didn’t get to work full shifts last week,” he said.

Commerford said there are many gay employees at the Manchester Hyatt, including himself. He is convinced that the boycott isn’t about gay rights, but about a labor dispute. Manchester Hyatt employees are non-union.

“They continue to wage a boycott where there is no boycott needed,” he said. “It’s very self-serving. It’s very unjustified.”

Karger said the GLBT community has joined forces with organized labor to make the boycott work. He acknowledged that Manchester did offer $125,000 – the same amount he gave to Prop. 8 – for AIDS service organizations, “which are tremendously worthy causes.”

“But where’s the labor component?” Karger asked. Manchester needs to take that into consideration because it’s the hotel’s employees who are most hurt by the boycott, he said.

“I’ve said from day one I’d be more than willing to meet with Mr. Manchester and would be willing to settle this,” Karger said.

What would it take to settle?

“He gave $125,000 to put this initiative (Prop. 8) on the ballot,” Karger said. “I would think he would have to give $125,000 to a new initiative to repeal Prop. 8.”

“If he truly regrets his actions and wants to make amends, I think that’s fair and reasonable,” Karger said.

Leslie Wolf Branscomb has been an editor and journalist for 27 years, writing primarily about politics and law for the San Diego Union-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press and others.