Green Party Watch

Military claim that Bradley Manning ‘mentally unfit’ echoes
past bias against homosexuals, charge LGBT Greens, marching
for alleged WikiLeaks source in Los Angeles Pride Parade Sunday

LOS ANGELES ­ Bradley Manning ­ WikiLeaks’ alleged source ­ is a
patriot who is, in part, being persecuted because of anti-Gay bias,
according a Green Party of California organizer here preparing to
participate in this Sunday’s LGBT Pride Parade.

Shane Que Hee, facilitator of both “Out Against War” and LA LGBT
Greens said Friday he’ll march for Manning, who has been held largely
incommunicado and without trial for more a year. After a flurry of
complaints by human rights groups, including Amnesty International,
Manning was moved recently from solitary confinement in a Marine
prison to a medium security prison.

“Bradley Manning has been condemned as guilty of supplying ‘secrets’
to WikiLeaks without a trial. He has been tortured. Both President
Obama and Senator Diane Feinstein have assumed he is guilty. This is
not the America I want.

“The fact Bradley Manning is Gay, and the military’s recent assertion
that Bradley Manning is ‘mentally unfit’ to be in the military echoes
the old military bias and the old medical description of homosexuals
as mentally ill,” charged Que Hee.

“Bradley’s father cast him from his home for being Gay, and the
military was his only recourse to stay off the streets. He became a
patriot. But he’s now said how shocked he was to find that all the
reasons he enlisted were gradually found to be false. All of us
eventually have to make similar choices like Bradley’s,” said Que Hee.

He noted that “celebrating one’s sexuality at LGBT Pride is linked to
truth and personal integrity,” as demonstrated by the actions Manning
is alleged to have made in the release of important information about
U.S. war-making in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The GPCA demanded Bradley Manning’s immediate release several times
earlier this year.