While Bill Clinton was inside the San Diego Hyatt, gays were outside protesting the owner's support for California Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution.

The hotel is the location of the next annual meeting of the American Historical Association.

In January the AHA was pressed by labor and gay members to join the gay boycott of the hotel. Instead, the AHA decided to sponsor a series of teach-ins on gay history.

Clinton's appearance drew protests from the Huffington Post's Rick Jacobs, the Chair and Founder of the Courage Campaign, a progressive political organization in California:

Bill Clinton happily took a six figure fee to undermine a boycott of Doug Manchester's San Diego Hyatt on Sunday. Mr. Manchester gave $125,000 to the Yes on 8 Campaign, so the LGBT and progressive communities, led by Cleve Jones and our friends at UNITE HERE, have been boycotting the hotel since July. But not Bill Clinton. He spoke yesterday even as we protested outside, trying to present him with the signatures of 30,000 Courage members who, in only forty hours, signed to ask Mr. Clinton not to speak at Mr. Manchester's hotel. Irony of ironies that Bill Clinton would actually support Ken Starr by helping to put money in the pocket of Mr. Starr's funders. But then again, Bill Clinton always had a different view of Fidelity than the rest of us.