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Reno-Tahoe travel
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Tough times for nonprofits
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Olympia Dukakis in SF
The
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Happy Pride 2011! • Vol. 41 • No. 25 • June 23-29, 2011
by Seth Hemmelgarn
P
ride’s almost here. The 41st annual San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade and celebration is this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, June 25-26. And with all the parties and of course, the parade, there will be one group receiving some extra attention. “The big focus is on LGBT youth this year,” said Pride interim Executive Director Brendan Behan. “The biggest message is how we as a community can do more to help LGBT youth, to be aware of the impact of bullying, and to create awareness in our communities about the kinds of resources we need to provide See page 4 >>
The Kaiser Permanente float at last year’s Pride Parade extolled the theme of liberty for all.
Jane Philomen Cleland
LGBTs largely absent in CA redistricting debate by Matthew S. Bajko
C
alifornia’s LGBT community has largely been absent, so far, in the debate over how to draw the state’s legislative and congressional districts. Few LGBT people have spoken up during the Citizens Redistricting Commission’s public meetings to date, said the oversight panel’s lone out member, San Francisco resident Cynthia Dai. “We have had several LGBT speakers at our meetings in Los Angeles, Salinas and Oakland but it was not a huge number,” said Dai, an electrical engineer who is an out lesbian and Asian American. “If a community doesn’t speak up, it doesn’t get represented.” LGBT leaders concede the fight over how to create political boundaries based on the 2010 Census for state Assembly and Senate seats, as well as California’s 53 House seats, hasn’t been a top priority. Prior to the June 10 release of the commission’s draft maps for the new political boundaries, “frankly, the gay community was MIA,” said San Francisco resident Chris Bowman, a gay man who has closely watched the redistricting process for decades.
Jane Philomen Cleland
Cynthia Dai, the redistricting commission’s only out member, encourages people to attend the upcoming public hearings in the Bay Area.
That day Equality California, the statewide LGBT advocacy group, did submit a letter requesting that the commission take the LGBT community into account
in determining district boundaries and sent in maps highlighting LGBT neighborhoods in various cities around the state. EQCA’s letter stated that LGBT communities “should remain intact ... especially those that exist in a particular political subdivision as a minority community.” Communities of color, however, have been more engaged in the process than the LGBT community, acknowledged Clark Williams, northern chair of the state Democratic Party’s LGBT Caucus. In many cities, said Williams, LGBT groups have focused instead on the redrawing of local districts for city council and Board of Supervisor seats. “Where I am hearing more concerns about is on the local level,” he said. “There is more advocating on that.” Yet the lack of LGBT voices weighing in on the decennial state redistricting process is expected to reverse course this weekend as the commission holds meetings in San Jose Saturday, June 25 and in San Francisco Monday, June 27. Local LGBT leaders requested the commission reschedule its San Francisco meeting once they learned it had initially been set for Sunday during the city’s annual Pride Parade and festival. The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club,
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