When SF Pride's electoral college of former grand marshalls selected Private Manning last week, it was time for these Professional Homosexuals to step in. Lisa Williams, SF Pride Board President, wrote that "even the hint of support" for Bradley Manning "will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride." Get it? Don’t even hint about it!
The Professional Homosexual went on, completely without irony, to denounce her own organization's electoral college as "a system whereby a less-than-handful of people may decide who represents the LGBT community's highest aspirations as grand marshals for SF Pride," completely ignoring that she was one of a different handful vetoing their choice. According to her SF Pride bio, Williams is president of "One Source Public Affairs, a boutique consulting firm that specializes in the management of state, local and national political campaigns and strategic programs for non-profit organizations"...As Jack Nicholson once said after doing a take with Brando on The Missouri Breaks: scorches the earth, doesn't he?
UPDATE. Some lively discussion of and dissension on Steven's story in comments. The main rap seems to be that he's just naively disappointed by the transformation of what used to be called the gay liberation movement into a political power brokerage that sometimes makes regrettable choices. (Longtime commenter Halloween Jack even calls the story "revisionist bullshit.") We can argue over what tradeoffs are worth making, certainly. I'd say the important thing is that Steven noticed the phenomenon at all -- especially the flow of military contractor money into big gay orgs. Too many people seem to miss that, in politics as in life, a lot of what looks like moral imperative is just arbitrage.
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