August 2, 2012 editon of the Bay Area Reporter

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Sketch released in gay slay

Olympic musings

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'War Horse' opens

The

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HIV rages among black gay men by Bob Roehr

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n alarming 60 percent of black men who have sex with men in the United States will become infected with HIV by the age of 40, according to the latest research presented at Bob Roehr the XIX InternationSheldon D. Fields al AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C. The HIV Prevention Trials Network study (HPTN 061) involved 1,553 black men in six cities – Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington – between 2009 and 2011. It found that 2.8 percent of the study parSee page 12 >>

Permit troubles delay shelter expansion by Seth Hemmelgarn

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lans for a space welcoming to LGBT homeless people are facing more delays after officials discovered that the existing shelter set to house the project doesn’t have the permit to operate as a shelter. The problems involve the Dolores Street Community Services-run space at 1050 South Van Ness Avenue. Work to establish the gay-friendly space began not long after a Board of Supervisors committee hearing in March 2010 in which LGBTs testified about harassment in San Francisco’s shelters. Late last year, some involved with the project had predicted that the space would be open by mid-February. But in an interview this week, Dolores Street Executive Director Wendy Phillips said that in December 2011, “We were ready to go with the rehab work on the expansion for the new queer-friendly space, and when the architect went to pull the permits, they realized our existing space had a permit for social services, but not for sleeping accommodations.” In addition to the shelter, there’s a childSee page 12 >>

Vol. 42 • No. 31 • August 2-8, 2012

Up Your Alley fun Gay

Catholics mixed on Cordileone

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he annual Up Your Alley street fair south of Market saw leather enthusiasts enjoy sunny San Francisco weather Sunday, July 29. Christopher Atilano-Galvan and Enrique Chavez played around at the fair, a run-up to the larger Folsom Street Fair in September. Demetri Moshoyannis, executive director of Folsom Street Events, which produces both street fairs, said that this year exhibitor booths for Up Your Alley increased by about 10 percent from last year. He estimated attendance at a little over 12,000, up from last year, and there were no problems reported. “This was our smoothest one yet, all things considered,” he said. This year’s Folsom Street Fair takes place a week earlier than usual, Sunday, September 23 and main stage headliners will be The Limousines, Little Boots, and Ladyhawke. For more information, visit www.folsomstreetevents.org.

by Chuck Colbert

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ay Catholics in the Bay Area and elsewhere offered mixed reactions to the Vatican’s announcement that Oakland Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone has been named the new archbishop of San Francisco. Danny Buskirk The blog Whispers in Archbishop-desthe Loggia first broke the news stateside of Cor- ignate Salvatore Cordileone dileone’s appointment, playing up Pope Benedict XVI’s “courageously bold – or stunningly brazen – American appointment” of a “lead hand behind the U.S. bishops’ national effort to defend the traditional definition of marriage.” It’s a jarring juxtaposition: A visible and outSee page 5 >>

Rick Gerharter

Special service to honor Golden Gate Bridge suicides by Matthew S. Bajko

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arold Wobber, a World War I veteran, has the dubious distinction of being the first known person to have committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Wobber went to the iconic span to take his own life August 7, 1937 just 10 weeks after it officially opened to the public. Over the ensuing years at least another 1,557 people are known to have died jumping from the Golden Gate. To mark the 75th anniversary of Wobber’s death, Congregation Sha’ar Zahav (which means “Golden Gate” in Hebrew) will honor the dead with a special ceremony next Tuesday night known as a Yizkor for the Fallen. “I know there are people in the congregation who know people who have jumped from the bridge,” said Rabbi Camille Shira Angel. In Hebrew Yizkor means “may God remember,” and the service involves the recitation of a memorial prayer for the departed. Jewish synagogues normally conduct the Yizkor ceremony four times a year, with the recitation of the names of deceased loved ones a way to publicly remember them. Shortly after the Bay Area celebrated the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th anniversary in May, several congregants at the predominantly LGBT

Rick Gerharter

The iconic Golden Gate Bridge has been the sight of at least 1,558 suicides since the span opened 75 years ago.

synagogue approached Angel about conducting a special Yizkor specifically for those who had committed suicide off the Golden Gate. It is believed to be the first time such a ceremony

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has been held to collectively remember and celebrate the 1,558 people. “This is a way for people affected by it to See page 13 >>


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