Activists to Honor Manning at SF Pride

Gay Army private Bradley Manning was stripped of his grand marshal status and is 3,000 miles away in Maryland at his court-martial but supporters will honor him in Sunday's San Francisco LGBT Pride parade anyway.

The Bradley Manning Support Network contingent, which has marched in San Francisco Pride parades for the last two years, is expected to be teeming with activists, probably a couple politicians, and supporters of the WikiLeaks whistle-blower. In a statement released this week, Manning's local supporters said in essence that they didn't care that the San Francisco Pride board refused to honor him - Manning will be their grand marshal.

Manning, 25, is accused of leaking some 700,000 classified government documents to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website. He has confessed to some of the charges against him, but is being court-martialed on other charges. The most serious, aiding the enemy, could send him to prison for life.

After initially naming Manning as a grand marshal in late April, the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee board reversed itself two days later. Initially Pride board President Lisa Williams, in a statement, said that it was a "mistake" to name Manning a grand marshal. Later, the board came out with a second statement that said Manning couldn't be considered for a community grand marshal slot because he is not local.

After a contentious community meeting May 31, the Pride board declined to recognize Manning in any way for the Pride celebration.

Joey Cain, a former Pride Committee board president and a former parade grand marshal, was the person who nominated Manning for the honor. He has been by turns, angry, hurt, and disappointed in how the controversy has played out, and the lack of communication and transparency from Pride officials.

"There's a major leadership problem at Pride that needs to be addressed," Cain said in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

To those who say that even though Manning is gay, what he did was not specifically gay-related, Cain has a different perspective.

"The reason I nominated Bradley Manning was because the LGBT community needed to know about him and embrace him," Cain said.

"Bradley Manning is a gay man who did this," Cain continued, "and it's most outrageous that people say, 'what does this have to do with gay issues?' It's absolutely telling the truth about who we are, and I call that coming out. The reason I believe he did what he did was what he went through as a gay person and telling the truth."

Given the months-long controversy, Cain would seem to have achieved at least part of his goal. Bay Area LGBTs likely are more aware of Manning, given that the episode has garnered ongoing media attention, particularly locally. Social media sites have also carried developments and impassioned critiques of the Pride board and Earl Plante, the CEO of the Pride Committee.

It's an open question as to whether the community has embraced Manning. But the story of self-confessed leaker and wanted fugitive Edward Snowden, who this month provided media outlets with information about the National Security Agency's surveillance of Americans' phone calls, emails, and other information, has certainly drawn parallels to Manning in mainstream coverage, supporters said.

"It shines a light on Bradley's case and I think a lot of people care about transparency," Michael Thurman, an organizer with the Bradley Manning Support Network, said of the Snowden case.

Thurman said that the support group is "disappointed" with the Pride Committee's actions around Manning this year. He pointed out that some military veterans are also planning to march with the contingent.

"I hope we can take back some of the spirit of Pride," he said.

Manning's supporters noted that one of the prominent people riding with the contingent will be Bay Area resident Daniel Ellsberg, 82, who gained fame himself when, in 1971, he leaked the Pentagon papers to the New York Times, which revealed that the Johnson administration was vastly understating Vietnam War casualties and "systematically" lying to the American people.

Lisa Geduldig, a lesbian activist who has been a vocal critic of Pride's handling of the Manning brouhaha, said in a statement this week that Pride parades in Seattle, New York City, and Chicago would feature Manning supporters.

Local attorney David Waggoner hadn't decided whether he will march with the Manning supporters. Waggoner, a former president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, was also critical of the Pride Committee and filed a discrimination complaint with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission over the issue. However, this month the HRC said it would not investigate the claim. The commission offered mediation if both sides agreed, but the Pride Committee notified the HRC that it declined to participate.

"Well, I guess my feelings are complicated," Waggoner said of the Manning matter. "I'm not one of those people who have totally written off [Pride] as a corporate-sponsored event, and I've heard that a lot from my progressive friends. I still see it as an incredibly important event for the LGBT community."

That said, Waggoner said that in his opinion, the Pride organization "has struggled the last few years with credibility."

"I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt but they won't even agree to mediation," he added.

Next Steps

Cain and Waggoner would like to see changes next year, notably around the grand marshal selection process.

"How they've handled this situation with Bradley Manning should never be allowed to happen," Waggoner said.

Cain said that he hoped to meet with Plante after the Pride celebration.

"I know he's swamped," he said.

Cain also expressed hope that new board members would be elected at Pride's annual general meeting, scheduled for September.

"We actively worked to make Pride a leader in transparency and it feels like that was shot to the wind the last few years," Cain said.

Plante was asked in an email if he was willing to sit down with Cain after the parade to talk about the organization. He ducked the question in his response, saying that the Manning contingent is one of "250-plus contingents that will also enjoy the tradition and privilege of free speech and expression in the SF Pride parade."