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GAY SAN DIEGO


August 13-August 26, 2010


NEWS GOProud questions approach of ‘Gay Inc.’


By Pat Sherman | GSD Editor The founders of fledgling gay


conservative group, GOProud—in town this month to take advantage of Doug Manchester’s cash and in-kind peace offering—said they had no problem hosting their event at the Manchester Grand Hyatt on July 31 (see page 1). Prior to their event, GOProud Executive Director Jimmy LaSal- via and Board Chair Christopher Barron met with Gay San Diego in their Manchester Grand Hyatt suite, funded by a $10,000 hotel credit from Manchester Finan- cial Group.


LaSalvia and Barron dis- cussed their reason for breaking the “Gay Inc.” boycott against the hotel and for accepting


Manchester’s money when other LGBT organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, Equality California and the Log Cabin Republicans—which LaSalvia and Barron left to form GOProud—refused Manches- ter’s overtures.


A picket of the GOProud event was organized not by members of the LGBT commu- nity but by a local labor union, LaSalvia noted.


“Even though Mr. Manchester has apologized for his support of Prop. 8 and is funding gay orga- nizations, they’d rather stick with the unions than their own inter- ests,” he said. “We’re talking about the whole coalition of the left. ‘Gay Inc.’ won’t talk about conservative policies that benefit gay people


because their coalition partners in the DNC (Democratic National Committee) won’t let them.” Barron said he believes Manchester sufficiently apolo- gized for his antigay contribu- tion—though not for his opposi- tion to same-sex marriage—and that LGBT people should see this as progress. “It should be a tremendous


victory for the gay community,’” Barron said. “Instead of us embracing a win, the community is out there saying, ‘No, no, no— it’s not good enough.’ “I’m not a big fan of boy-


cotts,” Barron added. “I can understand at the beginning if the objective was to attempt to get him to change on this—and he did, so why isn’t the gay part of this boycott over?” Neither LaSalvia nor Barron said he has met Manchester in person, nor did they recall if he was invited to their event, which Manchester did not attend. LaSalvia and Barron left the employ of the national gay group Log Cabin Republicans early last year, dissatisfied with the direc- tion the organization was headed. “We’d had a lot of conversa-


Jimmy LaSalvia (left) and Chris Barron of GOProud in their suite at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. Barron said “the gay community has been kind of throwing a ‘Hail Mary’ pass over and over with the marriage issue. Sometimes we win, but a lot of times recently we’ve been on the losing side of it.. .. Maybe it’s time we start moving the ball down the field.” (Courtesy Pat Sherman)


tions internally about wanting to change the direction that the organization was headed in and start focusing on the issues that gay conservatives cared about,” Barron said. “Somewhere between 1.3 and 1.7 million openly gay people voted for John McCain and Sarah Palin in 2008. That’s a huge number, and the


see GOProud, pg 7


Members of the Rock Church, which hosted an event supporting Carrie Prejean’s denigration of same-sex marriage when she was a Miss USA pageant contestant, helped renovate the aging Starlight Theatre this spring. (Courtesy Starlight Theatre)


Theater renovation ‘rocks’ some in LGBT community


Starlight gets flack for accepting makeover from Prop. 8 proponents


By Margie M. Palmer|GSD Reporter


The Rock Church, known locally for its strong support of Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that amended Califor- nia’s constitution to recognize marriage as being only between one man and one woman, recent- ly spread its evangelical wings, touching down in San Diego’s LGBT-friendly Uptown district. As part of its annual “Do Something” program, a volunteer outreach that has a goal of donat- ing 700,000 community service hours in 2010, approximately 600 church volunteers helped reno- vate the popular Starlight Theatre in Balboa Park. The Starlight, a staple of the


LGBT theatre community, has since been under fire from its gay patrons.


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“People have accused us of accepting blood money,” said Starlight Theatre Assistant Gen- eral Manager Derek Lorenzen. “I’ve been called a self-loathing gay man; people have called and said [that allowing The Rock


Church to do volunteer work] is comparable to inviting the KKK into the theatre.”


In a testimonial in support of


Prop. 8 appearing on the website protectmarriage.com, The Rock Church’s senior pastor, Miles McPherson said, “I support Prop- osition 8 because I’m convinced that the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman is God’s design... . We’re fighting to preserve God’s design for the family as the best building block of society. It’s as basic as that.” According to a Church


representative who did not want her name used in connection with this story, the church donates more than 200,000 hours to the city of San Diego each year, with members of the congregation working in conjunction with the mayor’s office and the city coun- cil to identify projects within the city where volunteer hours are most needed. It was through this process,


see Starlight, pg 10


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