Update 4/27/13: SF Pride controversy: supporters stand for Bradley!
Bradley Manning. The heroic gay soldier who did the right thing by exposing war crimes through the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
Days after awarding Bradley Manning the honor of being a Grand Marshal in the SF Pride parade, officials with the organizations issued a statement rescinding the honor, citing that it had been a mistake. The sharply worded statement has upset many, who question the organizations reasons for backing down on the nomination of a heroic gay soldier who exposed war crimes. It has been well established that no harm has come from the release of documents to WikiLeaks, yet in the Pride statement Lisa L Williams, President of the board, writes that “even the hint of support for actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform — and countless others, military and civilian alike — will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride.” This statement of intolerance by the SF Pride board is a factual fallacy: it has been well established that no one has been harmed by the release of the documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
Glenn Greenwald has called the Pride statement “cowardly”, and he corrects a number of the factual errors made by the Pride leadership. He challenges the assertion that people were put in harms way, stating that this argument is “a substance-free falsehood originally spread by top US military officials which has since been decisively and extensively debunked, even by some government officials“. Greenwald is also critical of the support Pride has given towards its corporate sponsors, and he takes them to task pointing out criminal acts many Pride sponsors have been involved in over the past years.
SFist reports “Spineless S.F. Pride Backtracks On Bradley Manning As Grand Marshal”:
“Because pride in San Francisco means neither being bold nor taking a risk, the San Francisco Gay Pride committee has backtracked on their appointment of Bradley Manning as the Gay Pride Marshal of the 2013 Pride Parade. Board president Lisa L. Williams sent out a bizarre press release Friday night attempting to clarify the controversy.”
The SFist article concludes with much the same critcism that Greenwald brings up, that Pride has been swayed by its responsibilities to its corporate sponsors.
Lt. Dan Choi, champion of gay rights in the military, stood up for Bradley Manning yesterday. He stressed that Bradley Manning was a good soldier who acted on his conscience to reveal the truth:
As we move forward as a country, we need truth in order to gain justice, you can’t have justice without the whole truth . . . So what he did as a gay American, as a gay soldier, he stood for integrity, I am proud of him.
How do you feel about this news? Let us know on Twitter and Facebook!
I’m a gay Vet as well and I support Bradley one hundred percent. What SFPride did was completely disgusting and cowardly. We need to have one huge protest at the SF Pride Celebration when it starts.
YES! Now is the time for the rest of us to stand up and refuse to be silenced by the cowardly apparatchiks.
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/04/27/sf-pride-president-capitulates-to-military-groups-announces-bradley-manning-wont-be-honored/
By: Kevin Gosztola Saturday April 27, 2013 10:28 am
Thanks for the excellent response to the SF Pride reversal.
For further details, see the above referenced article is a good analysis of what is behind the behind on this matter.
Peace.
As Kevin Gosztola highlights in his article linked in the above comment, detractors are mostly from the military and are depending on lies to defend their personal/group opinions. Kevin wrote:
“—Stephen Peters, president of the American Military Partners Association, who demanded SF Pride rescind honoring Manning and told AP:
Manning’s blatant disregard for the safety of our service members and the security of our nation should not be praised…No community of such a strong and resilient people should be represented by the treacherous acts that define Bradley Manning.”
Stephen Peters can be contacted at [email protected]
IMO SFPride should be shunned. An alternative should be developed; for instance, an Occupy type gathering could go a long way to separating the human cause of LGBT rights from inhumane corporate control of the event.
Straight but not narrow. White. Male. Bradley is my brother and my hero.
Absolutely disgraceful. She’s either lost her moral compass, or never had one to begin with. Perhaps she’s been lying in wait to slither into bed with corporate scum.
Very shameful!
Bradley is heroic and what he did took courage.
Shame on these organizers and weasel words they use to defend their disgusting actions
It’s the US government endangers the soldier’s lives by conducting injustice wars. It is the US government used their troops committing horrendous crimes in other countries. The information leaked by wikileak helped fueling the opposition of Iraq people to the US occupation which forced the Iraq government denied the judicial immunization of US troop, which made US regular forces to evacuate from Iraq completely. This actually saved the US soldiers’ lives by bringing them out the nonsense war fields. Support or troops? This should be the way we support them. The information provided by Manning showed the government lies about the wars and using classification to hide their crimes. However, Ms Williams completely ignore them but focused on the only tiniest suspect of security concern about the troops.
I think the LGBT society should be ashamed to have Lisa L Williams to be the president of the board. Of course she has the right to oppose Manning, but it is just shameful to use some shit as her reason.
If we look at why people are fighting about gay rights, one important reason is the fight for equality or you can say it’s a fight for basic human rights. Manning helped revealing those ugly truth and the inequalities caused by the US government and its troops. I cannot imagine anyone who fights for equality can feel so comfortable to ignore the tragedies caused by the military and just accused that the leaked cable can endanger US solders.
I think people can just celebrate Manning by themselves. Lisa L Williams and the board organization are not qualified to do so.