Gay AP intern found dead
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Cooper comes out
ARTS
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'Endgame: AIDS in Black America'
The
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Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
Vol. 42 • No. 27 • July 5-11, 2012
Suhr to issue bulletin on condoms by Seth Hemmelgarn
S
an Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr has announced that condoms will no longer be confiscated as evidence of prostitution by officers. “Nobody should be taking anybody’s Rick Gerharter: condoms from Chief Greg Suhr anybody, under any circumstances,” Suhr said in a recent interview. He said he’d be “resending, with emphasis, the policy that’s always been in place.” A department-wide bulletin will be distributed, he said. Suhr’s comments Thursday, June 28, came one week after a Bay Area Reporter story in which two department officials in the same unit contradicted one another: One said police don’t take condoms as evidence of prostitution, but the other said they do. Last Thursday, the day of the interview with Suhr, the B.A.R. ran an editorial calling on the San Francisco Police Department to immediately develop a policy that will not confiscate condoms from people, particularly those suspected of prostitution, and use them as evidence in any court case. Captain Denise Flaherty, who heads the SFPD’s special victims unit, which oversees prostitution operations, recently said there isn’t a written policy, but the practice is not to use condoms as evidence of prostitution. Suhr, who called the B.A.R. last week about something else but spoke freely about his department’s condom practices when asked, said he was aware that condoms had been confiscated from someone “on at least one occasion,” which he said is “not acceptable.” There have been reports over the years of police taking condoms from people suspected of prostitution, including transgender women. Most of those reports have been indirect, but a transgender office manager for a local nonprofit recently described how, despite her unassuming attire, officers stopped her one afternoon, searched her bag and took five condoms. She said they told her she “looked like” she “was prostituting.” She was not cited. Such practices have raised concerns about people being less likely to carry condoms, thereby putting them at greater risk for HIV transmission. Suhr, who spoke of his agency’s support of “harm reduction,” indicating he understands See page 13 >>
Rick Gerharter
Workers from Sheedy Drayage Co. and Atthowe Fine Art Services guide Keith Haring’s sculpture, “Untitled (Three Dancing Figures), 1989” back onto its plinth at the corner of Howard and Third streets by the Moscone Center Saturday, June 30. The sculpture shines with new vibrancy after being reinstalled; it had been removed for refurbishment and painting.
Haring work dances again in SF by Matthew S. Bajko
K
eith Haring’s whimsical figures are dancing once again in San Francisco’s South of Market district. After undergoing an extensive makeover, the
artist’s 3,200-pound sculpture “Untitled (Three Dancing Figures), 1989” has returned to its prime corner spot on Howard Street at Third. It was reinstalled outside of the city’s Moscone Center early in the morning of Saturday, June 30. The piece depicts a trio of enmeshed figures
that resemble larger-than-life characters that have escaped from the children’s board game Candy Land. Their limbs intertwine as the genderless blue, yellow, and red people strut their stuff. See page 11 >>
Oakland bishop seeks loyalty oath from gay Berkeley Catholic group by Chuck Colbert
T
he board of directors of a Catholic gay ministry group has refused to sign a loyalty oath, a move that may prompt Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland to declare the Berkeley-based Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministry “not authentically Catholic.” News of the bishop’s loyalty-oath request broke in the National Catholic Reporter, a publication independent of church officials, after correspondence from the CALGM board to its members was leaked to NCR. “In an April 12 letter to the association’s [directors]” NCR reported, “Cordileone stated he would ‘take public action to clarify the status of CALGM with regard to authentic Catholic ministry’ should they refuse to take an oath that required that each member ‘strive to clearly present Catholic doctrine on homosexuality in its fullness’ and ‘profess personally to hold and believe, and practice all that the holy church teaches, believes, proclaims to be true, whether from the natural moral law or by way revelation from God through Scripture and tradition.’” An investigation of the organization and its “adherence to the fullness of Catholic teaching” has been ongoing since December 2010. Representatives of CALGM have met twice in person with Cordileone. The organization and bishop
Chuck Colbert
Arthur Fitzmaurice, Ph.D., resource director for the Berkeley-based Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministry
have exchanged nearly a dozen letters, according to NCR. In refusing to sign an “oath of personal loyalty,” CALGM’s leadership has called it “unprecedented, inappropriate, and potentially detrimental to church ministry.”
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During a wide-ranging interview on June 26, Arthur Fitzmaurice, Ph.D., CALGM’s resource director, said the genesis of the investigation stemmed from concerns about the organization’s newsletter and comments “some of which we could explain” to the bishop and “some he thought were hostile to church teaching.” Fitzmaurice cited two examples. One was criticism of the term “objective disorder,” without CALGM’s affirming that church teaching in fact considers the homosexual orientation to be “objectively disordered.” Another concern, he said, was CALGM’s claim that “being gay is a gift and a grace.” “The bishop had objections,” Fitzmaurice said. And yet, “we shared with him why it could be considered a gift and part of our faith journey,” in bringing us “to a closer relationship with Jesus Christ.” Fitzmaurice described the first meeting with Cordileone as “cordial and productive.” “We were able to share stories from our members, stories of our ministry,” said Fitzmaurice, who added that the bishop told CALGM’s representatives in attendance “he came to a place where he did realize how important it was to reach out to the marginalized in the church.” CALGM President Sheila Nelson and a priest, See page 13 >>