McManus set to lead gay parade
Web Posted: 06/27/2007 10:36 PM CDT
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/met...l.33ac5ab.html
Guillermo Contreras
Express-News
Police Chief William McManus will be the grand marshal of Sunday's Gay Pride SA Festival and Parade, the first to cop to assume the role.
The local police force had a strained relationship with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and was rapped over it in a 2005 report by Amnesty International. But since McManus became police chief in April 2006, gay activists say, he has made it a point to foster better understanding, communication with and treatment of that sizable minority group.
The festival portion is from 6 to 11 p.m., and the parade starts at 9 p.m. Both mark the end of Gay Pride Month and are held on North Main Avenue, east of San Antonio College.
"My take is this chief has really been a blessing to work with," said John Downum, owner of The Saint nightclub and an event organizer. "He's in it for the total community, not just the gays, or blacks, or any one group."
Travis Peterson, chairman of the Stonewall Democrats' Peace Officers Liaison Committee, said it's only fitting that McManus be the grand marshal.
Peterson, one of 12 members of the gay community who will provide sensitivity training to officers beginning in August, points to a handful of measures that helped change the perception of the department. Among them is McManus' directive to keep Capt. Larry Birney, who commands SAPD training, as the department's liaison to the LGBT community. McManus also has launched efforts to hire more minorities, including gays.
Last year, McManus attended meetings of the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio, a political action committee, met with owners of gay nightclubs and went to the clubs with his wife to familiarize himself with the scene.
"We made a night of it," he said of the couple's visits to gay nightclubs.
He even ordered all officers who patrol the area near Main Avenue — where several of the clubs are located — to attend one of the meetings "to drive home the point that he wanted more cooperation with the gay community," said Sam Sanchez, who publishes QSanAntonio.com, a Web site covering issues affecting the LGBT community.
"The thing is that for so long, the Police Department had a really bad reputation with the community to the point that no one really trusted them," Sanchez said. "He's helped lift that suspicion that people had about them. There's still work to be done, but he's been able to do more, and little by little, attitudes will change."
McManus told reporters Wednesday that the Amnesty International report "showed me there was something there that needed to be worked on."
"We've opened up communication with the gay community, and ... I think being in the parade solidifies that," he said. "It's icing on the cake."
Before coming to San Antonio, McManus was the liaison to the gay community while he was with the Washington, D.C., Police Department. As police chief in Minneapolis, he marched in a gay pride parade there.
And while he was in the nation's capital, McManus was the subject of fodder for the press over his friendship with Dave Kopay, a retired football player who was among the first pro athletes to declare his homosexuality. The two were romantically linked in the press. Even after McManus got married, newspapers suggested he was gay. McManus told this story to the Stonewall Democrats at a meeting last year.
McManus said he and Kopay, whom he met in the mid-1970s, are friends.
"A person's sexuality is irrelevant to me," McManus said of his dealings with people in the gay community.
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