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2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 5-11, 2012
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EQCA to discuss plans at Jan. event by Seth Hemmelgarn
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he statewide lobbying group Equality California is set to discuss its 2012 San Francisco Equality Awards and other plans at an awards kick-off party Friday, January 20. Besides the awards, EQCA officials are also expected to discuss their 2012 legislative agenda. The awards ceremony itself is slated for March, a month later than usual, but EQCA spokeswoman Rebekah Orr couldn’t provide an exact date. She said award recipients hadn’t been determined. Last year was a tumultuous one for EQCA. Governor Jerry Brown signed into
law 10 of the 12 bills it sponsored. However, in October, former Executive Director Roland Palencia quit after only three months on the job. EQCAs also bled hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years. Orr said the group has made progress since Palencia’s departure. It still doesn’t have an interim director, but Alice Kessler, EQCA’s former government relations director, is again working with the organization. Other recent additions include consultant Joan Garry, who was once executive director of the national Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Garry, who’ll be at the January party, and others have referred interview requests to Orr, who’s refused to make any such
arrangements. Orr indicated the leadership transition is the main reason the fundraiser is being pushed back a month. Last year’s gala raised about $300,000. The organization is looking at cutting expenses. The budget for the 2011 awards ceremony was about $119,000, Orr said. She said they expect to cut the budget for this year’s event by $40,000. The January 20 kick-off party runs from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and will be at the home of board member Suzy Jones. Admission is free, but RSVPs are requested by January 15. The address will be shared with people who RSVP. For more information, visit www.eqca.org.▼
Bears revamp SF winter weekend by Matthew S. Bajko
of course the people, SF Bear Weekend – a grassroots, web 2.0, social media driven event was born,” states the page, which can be found at www. sfbearweekend.com. The men behind the weekend are turning the disadvantages that caused IBR’s demise into strengths. Namely, anyone and any bar or charity group can decide to have their own event during the bear weekend and promote it on the event website, which automatically directs people to the Facebook page. Participants, in turn, can organize their own schedule that weekend. The hope is that the event will not only go viral, helping to attract visitors those dates, but also become a permanent part of the city’s LGBT calendar, similar to how Pride is always the last weekend of June in San Francisco.
“Hopefully, upon the success of the first SF Bear Weekend, it shall be declared by the Bears of Planet Earth, that now and forevermore the third weekend of February shall be an international bear weekend in the Great City of San Francisco, regardless of if there’s a person, group, page, twitter, or anything else to promote it,” states the Facebook page. “Everyone will just know to come to SF for Bear Weekend, like Marti Gras in New Orleans or Carnival in Rio.” The event’s Facebook page went live in early October, and already more than 330 people have indicated they plan to participate. Several of the city’s gay bars and Eros, the male sex club in the Castro, are hosting events, ranging from beer busts and happy hours to dance parties and a farewell barbecue. “I guess I am happy anytime things like this pop up. There’s really no such thing as too many opportunities to get together as a community,” San Francisco resident Daniel Hlad, who plans to participate, told the Bay Area Reporter. Others like the unofficial aspect to the weekend. “Not knocking IBRs of the past but I’m glad that the pageants, most of the organized events; etc. are through! I’ve always had the best time on these weekends when I didn’t have to follow any ‘schedule,’” wrote Wayne Kaye on the Facebook page. “For me, free time is the only way to go during these weekends!” Anyone who wants to have an event listed as part of the weekend’s itinerary can email sfbw@sfbearweekend.com.▼
Internet, Romney recently talked with a gay Army veteran as he sat next to his husband in a Manchester restaurant and said that he supports efforts to repeal the state’s marriage equality law. Perry applauded the bill’s sponsor, state Representative David Bates (R-Windham,) and other lawmakers who back the repeal measure in a speech he gave at the conservative Cornerstone Action’s annual banquet in late October. Huntsman, whose campaign is riding on a win in New Hampshire, described the federal Defense of Marriage Act as serving a “useful purpose” at an event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., last month. “Despite more Republican primary voters opposing the repeal of marriage equality than supporting it, marriage equality has not been an issue in the primary, namely because all of the candidates except Fred Karger support its repeal,” gay New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley told the B.A.R. He expects a major GOP presidential candidate will support marriage equality by the 2016 primary. Karger is the openly gay Republican presidential candidate who has been campaigning in New Hampshire,
although he does not register on most voters’ radars. “It was a significant missed opportunity for one of the major candidates to break out of the pack by focusing on LGBT issues,” said Buckley of the current crop of candidates. St. John said he would probably vote for Huntsman if he were a Republican, but he applauded Romney as a “wonderful businessman” who left Bain Capital to run the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. St. John was far less certain of whether Romney would make a good president. Both Huntsman and Romney are Mormons, although that issue hasn’t figured prominently in the race. “He left his company to save the Olympics and he did a wonderful job,” said St. John. “He can do a great job as the president, but I believe he is ... for a lack of [a] better [word] a little too prejudice for my taste. Politicians can say anything and say they’re going to do anything, but when you let us know who you are for so many years – you’ve been in the same religion since you’ve been a child, you’re not going to change your spots too easily.”▼
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he bears will be returning to San Francisco this winter after all, but for more of a DIY event than an officially organized weekend. For years the city played host each February to the International Bear Rendezvous, a three-day-long gathering for hirsute gay and bisexual men and their admirers. But after 17 years, organizers retired the party weekend following the 2011 event. Increasing costs, funding shortfalls, a lack of new volunteers, and the ease for bears (and cubs, otters, pandas, and other subsets within the larger bear community) to meet online and at regional bars or events were cited as key reasons for ending the get-together, whose genesis was the first Bear Expo held in 1992. But Ursus, at least the gay variety, don’t want to hibernate all winter long. So they are launching a new event called SF Bear Weekend. The gathering will take place over the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend, which falls on February 17-20. “The bears will be back but it is not IBR. It is being Internet-driven and is not officially sponsored,” Jeff Stiarwalt, a local resident who is helping to re-launch the event, told Castro merchants last month. According to the event’s Facebook page, gone are IBR’s dog tags and any official registration. There also will not be a host hotel, designated charities, or a theme associated with the weekend. “Sadly, 2011 was the last IBR. In its absence, and with the understanding that the essence of any bear event is
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New Hampshire From page 1
October 2 found that 62 percent of New Hampshire voters oppose efforts to repeal the law, while 81 percent of respondents said marriage equality in the Granite State has not impacted their life since the law took effect in January 2010. Forty-four percent of New Hampshire voters said they are actually more likely to vote against a candidate who backs the bill. “My sense is that it would not serve a candidate’s interests in New Hampshire to highlight that issue,” said Dante Scala, an associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. “It’s just not something that most New Hampshire Republicans consider a key issue.” A coalition of groups that oppose the repeal measure unveiled a new ad earlier this month that features three Republicans and a Democrat who urge state lawmakers to vote against it. The same aforementioned Gingrich volunteer stressed that Republican candidates should stay out of the state’s marriage equality debate. Some have decided upon a different strategy. In a video seen widely on the
Rick Gerharter
A more grassroots SF Bear Weekend will take place in San Francisco in February.