San Francisco Bay Times - July 9, 2015

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James Obergefell and John Arthur’s Legacy Obergefell v. Hodges is the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that led to all states being required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and to recognize same-sex marriages validly performed in other jurisdictions. The plaintiffs were James Obergefell and the late John Arthur.

The couple married in Maryland after being together for two decades, but their state of residence, Ohio, would not recognize their marriage. The injustice of this became particularly evident when Obergefell was not permitted to be listed as the surviving spouse on Arthur’s death certificate, after Arthur died from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) in 2013. The case, which moved from district courts all

the way to SCOTUS, was critical to securing nationwide marriage equality.

After the historic ruling on June 26, Obergefell said, “Today’s ruling from the Supreme Court affirms what millions across the country already know to be true in our hearts: that our love is equal.” President Barack Obama praised the decision, calling it a “victory for America.”

Below, attorney Alma Soongi Beck explains how this landmark case affects California couples. We advise that you heed her advice if any of the mentioned situations apply to you and your partner. If they do, consider taking action soon to ensure that your rights are secured.

Post-Obergefell: California Same-Sex Couples and the New Era of Federal and State Marriage Recognition

By Alma Soongi Beck, J.D., LL.M. Taxation, Certified Specialist, Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law, State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization Once again, June 26 has become a momentous day for the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), extending constitutional rights to same-sex couples. In 2003, Lawrence v. Texas (U.S. June 26, 2003) repealed so-called “sodomy” laws that prohibited same-sex intimate relationships, declaring these laws a violation of the constitutional right to privacy. In 2013, United States v. Windsor (U.S. June 26, 2013) repealed the so-called federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as a violation of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment, thus requiring federal recognition of same-sex marriages in states that recognize the marriages. And, of course, last month, on June 26, 2015, in a decision that literally brought rainbow lights to the White House, Obergefell v. Hodges declared marriage a fundamental right protected by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in all 50 states throughout the country.

The most dramatic impact of the Obergefell decision will certainly be felt in the minority of states that had not previously permitted same-sex marriages. But even in the 37 states (including California) plus the District of Columbia where same-sex marriages were already recognized, the impact of Obergefell will still be felt in subtler, but still important, ways.

So what does the latest decision in Obergefell herald for same-sex married couples in California, if we already had federal recognition? Mostly, it affects cross-state rights, such as for couples who live in different states, are moving to and from different states, and who own property in different states. The following are some examples relating to property, taxes, and estate planning (trusts, wills, powers of attorney): (1) Owning property in other states Until the Obergefell decision, California same-sex married couples who owned property in states that did not recognize the marriage were left with some degree of limbo about the status of the property. In most states, property rights are governed by state law, and if a state is not recognizing a couple’s marriage, it can negatively affect the couple’s tax or property rights relating to that property. With a constitutional requirement to recognize marriages from other states, now all states will be required to recognize marital property rights of those couples.

If you have property in a state that was not until last month recognizing same-sex marriages, it may be worth contacting your California estate planning attorney about whether anything can or should be changed in your estate planning documents relating to your out-of-state property.

Potential changes could involve new deeds, or for unmarried couples, a

nizing the marriage were able to take advantage of these federal rights. On other issues, such as social security and Medicare, the states have been inconsistent in their willingness to recognize those federal rights.

fresh look at whether it might make sense to consider marriage.

(2) Moving to other states Until the recent decision, California samesex couples who moved to states that did not recognize their marriage were left with some insecurity about their rights in relation to each other. Some of this insecurity could be tempered by having estate planning documents to assist with inheritance, financial management, and health care decision making. Other issues might require court action, such as those relating to parental rights concerning minor children.

If you are parents of a minor child and are considering moving to another state, make sure to talk to your family attorney about your parentage rights and presumptions before you leave California, in case it may still make sense to file some adoption paperwork for the non-birth parent. For your estate planning documents, have them reviewed by an attorney in that state after you leave California, ideally by someone with a track record of working with same-sex couples and who has been keeping track of the evolution of the laws in that state.

(3) Moving to California from another state As for anyone who moves from another state, same-sex married couples should have their estate planning documents reviewed by a California licensed attorney with a track record of working with samesex couples. This review might also involve discussion of issues relating to California capital gains taxes, California property taxes, and California parentage rules.

(4) Couples living in different states The recognition of marriage in all 50 states should greatly decrease the confusion that has arisen regarding certain federal and state rights where the two people in a couple live in different states. This is especially true where one state has not until last week recognized the marriage. If this scenario applies to you and you have not reviewed your estate planning documents in the last 2–3 years, you may want to review them again in light of the recent decision, to see if property needs to be re-characterized, if marital provision is altered, and/or if new trusts need to be set up.

As a reminder, federal rights for California same-sex married couples have been clear since the Windsor decision in 2013. On certain issues, such as immigration and federal taxes, even married couples in states not recog-

Married couples in California should still be careful and not assume that their marital status alone will give all the protections needed. For instance, same-sex couples in California who have not had their estate planning documents reviewed since the Windsor decision in 2013 may be missing out on very valuable and important opportunities provided by marriage, such as: (A) Federal capital gains protection at 1506093-CLX-SFBayTimes-0625-4x6.indd the death of the first spouse. In many cases, couples need to proactively transfer their property into community property by deed or by agreement or both. Failure to act could result in a loss of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a surviving spouse.

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(B) Review of estate planning documents to include marital trust provisions. If your trust has not been updated since 2013, it may not contain marital trust provisions that could save or eliminate the federal estate tax upon the death of the first spouse.

Failure to act could be costly.

(C) Consideration of marriage by couples who are not yet married. If you have not at least considered getting married since the Windsor decision in 2013, you may be missing out on benefits that could save a lot of money for you and your spouse, either during life, such as with social security spousal benefits, or at death from tax exemptions.

(D) Consideration of California state registered domestic partnership for couples who choose not to marry. We still have a state registered domestic partnership in California that offers marital benefits on the state level. If you choose not to marry, you may still want to consider domestic partnership registration to take advantage of state-level tax benefits relating to capital gains and property taxes.

The promise of the Obergefell decision is the leveling of the playing field for all married couples regardless of state of celebration, or state of residence, and regardless of where couples move between or own property across different states. In this new era of federal and state recognition, we will soon see a time where the planning issues will be virtually identical for samesex and opposite-sex married couples.

In the meantime, please check your documents and have them reviewed, especially if you have cross-state issues or have not reviewed your documents since 2013. A little bit of time now could save a ton of time, money, and headache in the future for you and your beloved.

Alma Soongi Beck, Esq., is a partner in the Trusts and Estates Group of Lakin Spears LLP, and is certified by the State Board of Legal Specialization as a specialist in estate planning, trust and probate law. For more information, please visit http://www.lakinspears.com/attorney-alma-soongi-beck/ BAY T IM ES JULY 9, 2015

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T REAT Y OURSELF TO AN E XCITING C ULINARY A DVENTURE WITH M ICHELIN S TAR C HEF S RIJITH G OPINATHAN

What Now for the Gays? Reflections on the State of Our LGBT Movement in the Wake of Obergefell even before Obergefell was decided, as a win came to seem increasingly likely.

Over Pride weekend, as I made the rounds of the various events we queer electeds are expected to attend, I quite liked the early answers I heard. Again and again, speaker after speaker reminded our celebrating community that while marriage may have been won, we are not near done.

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A San Francisco Kind of Democrat Rafael Mandelman The Supremes have done it again.

Another Pride season has come and gone, and with it, another momentous Anthony Kennedy opinion affirming the shared humanity of gays and lesbians. Not to mention, another deliciously histrionic dissent from Antonin Scalia providing fodder for Jon Stewart and the other late night comedians. It was only two years ago that the Court issued its decisions in the Windsor and Perry cases, then as now just in time for Pride. At the time, Scalia and company feared the brethren and sistren of the Court majority were setting themselves on an ineluctable course to eventually finding a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. On that point at least, Scalia has been proven right. He can’t be wrong on everything, I suppose.

This summer’s Obergefell decision was obviously a culmination of decades of disciplined legal and policy work by many great lawyers and political leaders, and sustained activism over that time by our queer and ally communities. For good or for ill, the recent history of our still-young LGBT political movement has been defined primarily by this fight for marriage equality. The path to victory was a winding and, at times, heartbreaking one. To this day, I remember standing in the crowd outside the California Supreme Court building in Civic Center in late May of 2009, as the same justices who only a year prior had found that the California Constitution protected same sex marriage now upheld Proposition 8. I was literally speechless; if there’s a judicial equivalent of a sucker punch, this felt like it. But the fight continued, and now, such a very short time later, it has been won.

Seemingly with one voice, I heard our community leaders declaring a collective intention to build on the foundation of the marriage victory to finally address the struggles of arguably greatest relevance to the most vulnerable among us. The challenge will be in moving from intention to action: will relatively more aff luent gay men and lesbians who had been so motivated by marriage equality now rally around issues of housing and employment and safety that may not seem to impact them as immediately?

One certainly hopes so.

The other worthy point I have heard repeatedly made in the days since Obergefell relates to the irony of our winning this victory at a time when so many other long-oppressed groups have been losing ground. The Court that gave America marriage equality is after all the same one that just days later upheld the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s use of a controversial lethal injection drug in death penalty cases and announced its intention to re-consider in its next session the constitutionality of affirmative action in university admissions. The contrast between the humanity of the Court’s treatment of same sex couples, on the one hand, and its tolerance for the death penalty and skepticism about efforts to right historic racial injustice

I was thinking some of these thoughts Pride Saturday morning—wondering what it means for gays and lesbians to be winning greater equality at a time when so many inside and outside our community are being left behind— as I stood at the top of Twin Peaks overlooking the giant pink triangle that Patrick Carney and his amazing volunteers have been installing there each year for the past two decades. I love Patrick and I love the Pink Triangle installation, but I will confess I have always been just a tad bit uncomfortable with the pink triangle as a symbol of queer liberation. Surely a movement as joyful as ours ought to have a more celebratory icon. Or, then again, maybe not. Maybe the pink triangle is actually perfect.

For me up there on Twin Peaks that Saturday morning something shifted.

What better symbol, I asked myself, could there be to remind us not just of the oppression experienced by our forebears, but of the obligations those of us lucky enough to live in this moment, who do not suffer in the way they did, carry to remain engaged in other struggles for justice? What better symbol to shock us out of the complacency that an affirmation of our belonging like Obergefell could engender?

Every queer person at some point has the experience of being a little bit different, and that experience can provide a perspective that is a gift to the individual and to the community in which he or she lives. The exercise of consciously choosing to identify with people who have experienced persecution and injustice beyond our imagination should allow us to be both more empathic and more indignant.

And in doing so, it may help to remind us of our collective responsibility to lessen the suffering of others, to make the world more just for all.

Roll up your sleeves, Queer Friends, and pin on those pink triangles. Savor this win, by all means, but there’s still a lot of work to do, and the world needs us to do it.

Rafael Mandelman is an attorney for the City of Oakland. He is also President of the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees.

PHOTO BY RINK

And now what? That is a question a lot of queer folks have been asking,

We are not done when we cannot get the Congress to pass ENDA (more than 40 years after it was first introduced), and 29 states still allow employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and 32 states still allow it on the basis of gender identity. We are not done when one in five transgender people have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives, when queer youth constitute 20–40% of the more than 1.6 million homeless youth nationally, and when in our own queer Oz of San Francisco, nearly a third of homeless people are LGBT. And we are not done when, as demonstrated by a recent joint study by the Human Rights Commission and the LGBT Center, so many of us, particularly transgender people and queers of color, experience shockingly high rates of violence.

on the other, echoed a similarly disconcerting juxtaposition back in 2013 when in the same session that it issued the Windsor and Perry decisions, the Court majority also struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

Jim Obergefell received a warm welcome when he appeared as a Guest of Honor in the 45th San Francisco Pride Parade.

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Juggling the Gay (LGBTQQI) Agenda roots of hate as homophobia, and the solutions are inextricably intertwined. You can’t work on one community’s needs in isolation. We need to work together, and collaborate as a powerful united force to fight for truly Equality Without Exception.

Urvashi Vaid wrote a very powerful essay in The Nation in 2013 following the Windsor SCOTUS decision that still holds very true today.

Do Ask, Do Tell Zoe Dunning With the recent victory in the Supreme Court for marriage equality, many are taking a moment to assess where we are as a community and where we want to go. What is next on the Gay Agenda?

Even with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in all 50 states, there is much remaining—LGBT immigration rights, employment nondiscrimination, welcoming schools, the elimination of HIV and AIDS, transgender rights, LGBT youth homelessness, and senior health and welfare issues, to name a few.

Declaring what is next is hard, since one person or group’s priorities are not necessarily another’s. We are not a homogenous community. We are all ages, all races and ethnicities, all over the world. Each of us has our own priorities based on who we are and where we live. A gay man living in Iran, a transgender woman of color in San Francisco, a young man with HIV in Salt Lake City, and a lesbian couple in rural Iowa would answer the question of “what’s next” differently.

One of the challenges of LGBT organizations that represent our diverse community is prioritizing policy and resources. That is why at the national level, Human Rights Campaign, and at the state level, Equality California, have a real challenge juggling these competing needs. It is also why lawmakers look to them, as representatives of our community, to help set the community’s legislative priorities and agenda. Frankly, it is easier for them to hear from a single voice than to sort out the chorus of other, more narrowly focused groups. That can be frustrating for those smaller organizations, especially when the larger organizations don’t take on your issue, or take it on when it is hot and they can raise money off of it.

I myself felt that frustration when HRC prioritized ENDA over marriage equality and DA DT repeal in 2008–2009. It wasn’t until it was clear a trans-inclusive ENDA bill would not pass anytime soon that HRC finally turned to DADT repeal and put legitimate resources toward it. Both are needed to get there—the large umbrella LGBT organizations with significant reach, resources and access, as well as the issue-focused campaigns that have the experience, grassroots networks and personal stories to highlight the inequities.

In the essay, Urvashi writes that we as a community have been very focused on formal legal gay/lesbian equality, and that litigation and legislation continue to be important areas to address to carve out our legal rights.

However, this alone does not address the economic, racial and genderbased inequities affecting transgender people, people of color, women, low-income LGBT folks and others in our community. We need to address these through programs that go beyond just the white, American, LGB community. We do this by allocating resources, both government and nonprofit, toward building economic and racial justice. As Urvashi points out in her Nation essay, immigrant rights and trans organizing provide solutions for how to address the interaction of sexuality, gender, race and poverty.

There are three areas I believe can create the greatest change for both our community and for “ big E” Equality— Equality without Exception. These are not at the exclusion of other important needs, but I believe these three cross so many policy areas that they can make a difference across the board for many people.

Transgender equality Too many of our victories—DADT repeal, marriage, and state non-discrimination laws, to name a few—don’t help our transgender brothers and sisters, yet they have been there on the front lines fighting for these milestones for the LGB community. We can’t fool ourselves into believing Caitlyn Jenner or Laverne Cox are going to singlehandedly change opinions, culture, policies and laws that harm the transgender community every day. Hate crimes continue at an alarming pace, especially attacks against transgender women of color. Whether it is housing, healthcare, identity papers, immigration or a host of other issues that impact the community, there is much work that is needed to ensure LGBT truly includes the T. We must allocate attention and resources to ensure safety, health, opportunity and dignity for all.

Immigration Marriage equality does not solve our LGBT immigration inequalities. Comprehensive immigration reform is something desperately needed in the United States, and is an opportunity for the LGBT community to build coalitions with our allies in the Latino and Asian communities, as well as other international organizations. Although we

As a result of these competing forces, the answer to the question of “what is next” can be different from “what should be next.” So I offer my perspective not as a prognosticator on what will happen, but where I think we as a community should focus, and how.

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I was very inspired by this year’s SF Pride theme, “Equality without Exception.” I think it is a great visionary statement. It means we don’t leave our trans brothers and sisters behind. It means we don’t leave members of our community overseas facing persecution, discrimination and even jail or death behind, and it means we don’t leave those in communities of color behind. Racism comes from the same

have not achieved equality here in the United States, we have it better than many other countries, and can provide asylum and opportunity for those who fear for their well-being, physically or economically.

Employment We will not achieve equality without the opportunity to earn a living. Here in San Francisco we can watch 8,000 Apple employees march in our Pride Parade, or the dozens of other employers celebrate Pride, and be lulled into a false sense of embrace by corporate America.

The truth is that many Americans are not employed by large businesses—over half are employed by businesses with less than 500 employees.

Eighteen states have no state-level protection for LGBT employees, and the remaining states are a patchwork of protections for sexual orientation, but not gender identity, or for state workers but no one else or a handful that do offer full protection from discrimination. This issue hits the transgender community particularly hard.

We need to continue chipping away at state and local laws until we get a fully inclusive ENDA (without religious exemptions) passed by Congress.

This leads to my conclusion—we have to get even more involved politically. As I’ve written before, if you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu. We have to identify, promote and vote for candidates that support equality without exception, and that will vote to pass ENDA and other state and local protections.

No election is more critical than the next Presidential election. As we have witnessed with the SCOTUS marriage decision, the justices we have on the Supreme Court (and Circuit and District courts) greatly affect our opportunity for full equality. Not one of the declared Republican candidates for the 2016 Presidential election is supportive of LGBT equality.

That is why it is crucial for us, and for women and every minority group, to work hard to ensure a Democrat serves in the White House. Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley would likely appoint judges that are more liberal on our issues.

I am supporting Hillary Clinton because she is the most qualified and experienced, understands the rough and tumble of DC politics, and brings a much-needed woman’s perspective to the conversation. She also has the fundraising capability to run a very strong general election campaign against the GOP war chest, which is important. Voting for a Democratic nominee that makes us feel good, but can’t defeat the Republican opponent, does us no good. For these reasons, I believe in my heart that one of our community’s priorities should be getting Hillary elected in 2016.

What are your priorities? Where can we build coalitions? How can you get involved? I hope you will ask yourself these questions. With marriage equality achieved, now is not the time to rest on our success. We need all hands on deck. I hope you will join the fight for Equality Without Exception.

Zoe Dunning and her wife Pam Grey were at SF City Hall for the Supreme Court Decision Day rally on Friday, June 26.

Zoe Dunning is a retired Navy Commander and was a lead activist in the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. She currently serves as the 1st Vice Chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, as a San Francisco Library Commissioner, and as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors for the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club.

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In the News

By Dennis McMillan

Documentary on 1961 Homosexuality Rediscovered A recently discovered hour-long documentary The Rejected, on the “homosexual problem” shows some differing views on homosexuality from several different standpoints. It was done by KQED in San Francisco and National Educational Television in 1961. Considering the year in which it was done, it’s amazing for its frankness and focus on homosexuality as a problem for homosexuals and society in general. Some people speak out asking for more tolerance and understanding; some sound even more progressive; a few others toe the conservative line. youtube.com/ watch?v=5R4tYXX8hbw&ab_ channel=metta8888 Kamala Harris Rejects Second Gay Murder Measure California Attorney General Kamala Harris has rejected another attempt by an Orange County attorney to process a ballot measure authorizing the killing of gays and lesbians. In his first public comments since proposing the original “Sodomite Suppression Act” in February, Matt McLaughlin expressed outrage that Harris’ office, which is charged with preparing ballot measures, summarily dismissed his latest offering, the “Sodomite Suppression Mandate.” Harris’ office informed him that it was not moving forward with his new request and was returning his $200 processing fee.

Like the first attempt, the proposal submitted on June 24 would legalize killing gays and lesbians by “bullets to the head” or “any other convenient method.” sacbee.com Supervisor Wiener Declares Candidacy for California State Senate Supervisor Scott Wiener, Democrat of San Francisco, announced his candidacy for the California State Senate, District 11. District 11 includes all of San Francisco, Daly City, Broadmoor, and Colma, and a portion of South San Francisco. The incumbent, Senator Mark Leno, is endorsing Wiener’s candidacy, as are Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Kamala Harris, Assemblymember David Chiu, State Senator Jerry Hill, Board of Equalization Member Fiona Ma, all 5 members of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, and numerous San Francisco and San Mateo County elected officials, labor unions and community leaders. scottwiener.com “LGBT Life Outside the Bay Area Bubble” Offered Free LGBTQ people living outside of progressive communities face a far different reality than many of us here in California; so two national experts will take a look at places where LGBTQ rights and equality generally lag, and how we can help advance equality across the country. The Horizons Foundation forum is July 14, 6-8pm, Merrill Lynch 8th Floor Conference Room, 555 California Street. To register: 415.398.2333 x103, horizonsfoundation.org 29th Annual AIDS WALK SF Happens July 19 in Golden Gate Park AIDS Walk San Francisco on July 19 is a 10K fundraising walk in Golden Gate Park benefiting Project Inform and HIV/ AIDS programs and services throughout the Bay Area.

Since 1987, AIDS Walk San Francisco has raised $84 million for HIV programs and services in the Bay Area, and has grown into the largest AIDS fundraising event in Northern California. To register, go to sf.aidswalk.net #MyNameIs Campaign Responds to Zuckerberg’s Comment about “Real Names” Policy Members of the #MyNameIs cam8

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paign—a coalition of LGBTQ people, Native Americans, survivors of domestic violence and others whose accounts have been reported and blocked on Facebook—recently issued the following: “Despite Zuckerberg’s statement, Facebook hasn’t provided any hard data or evidence that its policy protects anyone.

In fact, the policy is actually very poorly designed for that purpose.

The #MyNameIs campaign has heard from thousands of people around the world, many with harrowing stories of being contacted by stalkers and former abusers, of being outed to homophobic family members or transphobic coworkers, or otherwise living in fear when they’ve been forced to use their legal name on Facebook. And that’s only that small slice of people who have reached out to a group of drag queens, artists, and activists in San Francisco.” mynameiscampaign.org One Injured in Shooting at Civic Center Pride Celebration An innocent bystander was shot after an argument between two groups of men turned violent at the Civic Center Pride celebration. According to San Francisco Police Department spokesperson officer Albie Esparza, officers were called to UN Plaza just after 6pm. Esparza says that several groups of men got in a verbal argument near or inside the Pride venue.

The incident escalated when one of the individuals pulled out a gun and fired several shots at a 64-year-old male Pride celebrant. He was transported to San Francisco General Hospital and is in stable condition.

Responding officers located “several possible suspects” on Market Street and detained them, Esparza says.

This unfortunate incident echoes similar shootings that happened during or after Pride festivities in 2013 and 2014. sfist.com/news Problems Occur After Changes Made to Dyke March Hundreds of protesters splintered from the planned Dyke March route to protest changes made to this year’s march—as an act of defiance “in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and in protest against the displacement of people and queer community institutions in San Francisco,” according to a press release. Following the march’s old route, the splinter group overwhelmed a police barrier at 18th and Guerrero Streets and later closed the intersection in front of the Lexington Club, a bar whose closure this year has been taken as a symbol of San Francisco’s vanishing queer spaces.

Problems began when leadership “decided to start the Dyke March 2½ hours early.” This year, organizers weren’t working with the Sisters of Perpetual indulgence to coordinate Dyke March and the Castro’s Pink Saturday, or rather, this year’s “Pink Party.” sfist.com Rally Assembles After Third Vandalizing of LGBT Mural in Mission District More than 150 demonstrators rallied in front of the Galeria de la Raza in the Mission District where an LGBT mural has been defaced for a third time. The first two times the mural was spray-painted. It was restored. But then someone set the wall on fire, which destroyed part of the painting. Politicians, artists, activists, and religious leaders gave emotional speeches about not dividing the Mission community, that queer Chicanos do exist, and that hate crimes would not be tolerated.

Equality California Endorses Cisneros as SF Treasurer Equality California has announced that it will endorse José Cisneros for reelection as San Francisco treasurer. (continued on page 26)

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OLOC Provides Courage for the Changes of Age

Aging in Community Susan Chacin How do you feel about getting old?

People often cringe at the idea, or even the word! They dispute me when I claim the term. Yes, at 70 I’m clear that I’m old. That doesn’t mean I’m giving up or that I need reassurances that I don’t look my age. I’m proud to be participating in the profound changes our culture is making. For years, I’ve been organizing for women’s rights, LGBTQ liberation, peace and economic justice, and fighting racism. Now it’s time to take some time for me, even if it means adding another cause to my agenda. Our culture’s denial of the gifts and beauty of age is the oppression of ageism.

Most of us experience youth as a decidedly mixed bag. Thinking back, we see that to be young wasn’t always joyful or even pretty. Why should we believe the other side of this false dichotomy? To be old does not mean we are sad or ugly. Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC) presents an alternative. A national organization with an active Bay Area chapter, OLOC seizes the initiative and overturns stereotypes of aging.

Noted author Jewelle Gomez found the July 2014 OLOC national gathering in Oakland “unnerving because (like most people) I never thought about who I’d be as an old woman.

Even though I was raised by old women—my g reat g randmother and grandmother—I never projected myself into their ages,” she told Epochalips. “I guess internally we imagine ourselves forever in our 20s.

But inspiration was the most remarkable aspect of the weekend. I got to see other gray haired women…and some blue…some purple…some magenta…who were part of my lesbian feminist coming of age: poets Avotcja and Chrystos, and singers Ronnie Gilbert, Alix Dobkin and Margie Adam. It was a reunion even if you didn’t know every one of the almost 300 women who attended.”

OLOC is open to Lesbians 59 years and older, welcoming partners and caregivers of any age. These generations have been breaking ground most of our lives. Some were dykes before the Compton Cafeteria and Stonewall riots. Others came out in the Lesbian-feminist wave that struck Women’s Liberation around 1970, heralded by the Radicalesbians manifesto: “The Woman Identified Woman.” Still others found our identities later in life. But among us are women who put their bodies on the line for civil rights, pioneered abortion rights and women’s music, took rape and domestic violence out of the closet, brought women into trades historically closed to them, created feminist art and literature, and played important roles in so much change it is hard to describe what the old world used to look like.

At this stage of life, there is plenty to discover and share. It is also time to find space for play and rest. Bay Area OLOC holds three daylong meetings, two overnight retreats, and a picnic every year.

Events are open on an ability-to-pay basis, and we embrace class and ethnic diversity. Wheelchairs are accommodated, we always use a sound system, and we are largely fragrance-free. A number of support groups have organized out of OLOC, offering members a more intimate solidarity for the process of aging.

What makes OLOC special? It is a sisterhood that understands the intersection of sexism, ageism, and homophobia. This affinity produces a community that members experience as life-affirming. Features of OLOC that I find important include: A rich fund of experience to draw on Women bring unique resources to OLOC. Besides serving as role models, their talents show up in writing, arts, crafts, gardening, music, and healing. When we check in at meetings and retreats, I am amazed at the wealth of activity in the circle.

Retreats feature an open mike, and members lead workshops ranging from creativity to grief and loss, sex and intimacy to meditation, and there is plenty of time for skinny-dipping, conversations, and naps.

Courage and the pursuit of wellbeing Members of OLOC know it takes courage to deal with changes in our bodies and minds, and the losses that come with age. In coping with all of this, we provide each other mutual support and practical suggestions for dealing with the medical, mental health, housing, and social services systems. We do not deny the challenges of age, but facing them together gives us strength.

Photo by Paul Margolis

OLOC takes pride in advocating for equality and justice.

If you or an Old Lesbian you know would like to meet members, OLOC’s upcoming picnic will be a great opportunity. It will be held at Live Oak Park in Berkeley on July 26. For more information, or to connect with OLOC, call Pat Cull at (415) 6375002 or email her at pat@oloc.org

Photo by Rink

Political understanding and diversity OLOC members share a critical understanding of life in today’s world and OLOC is a place where progressive values are accepted. OLOC belongs to the California Alliance for Retired Americans, which is dedicated to preserving, expanding, and improving Social Security and Medi-Care.

We seek out connections with diverse groups such as Black Women’s Lives Matter, climate justice, and Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project.

Susan Chacin, born in 1945, is a retired social worker living with her spouse in Berkeley. She can be reached at susanchnew@ gmail.com. Susan is active in Democratic Socialists of America East Bay, and participates in Bay Area OLOC’s Coordinating Council and Political Action Committee.

Dr. Marcy Adelman oversees the Aging in Community column. For her summary of current LGBT senior challenges and opportunities, please go to: sf baytimes.com/challenges-and-opportunties

EQUALITY = HEALTHY We all bring something unique to the world, something for which we are proud.

For the 6th year in a row, Kaiser Permanente has been recognized as a leader in health care equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender populations in the Healthcare Equality Index 2015 report.

And this year, Kaiser Permanente has received a 100% rating as one of the Best Places to Work for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations in the Corporate Equality Index 2015 report.

For more information about Kaiser Permanente, visit kp.org

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Three Ways to Simplify Your Financial Life cable providers or your electric company. You’ll then receive an email when your statement or bill is ready each month. This gives you the option to download and store your statements electronically and also to print and file as needed.

Money Matters Brandon Miller, CFP When life gets busy, it’s easy to become more passive about managing your bank accounts and credit cards by letting receipts, bills and statements pile up. Even if you regularly keep up with your finances, it can be beneficial to take a fresh look at them.

Simplify your financial life with these three strategies.

Go paperless.

It’s easier than ever to access financial documents online. Choosing paperless convenience will make your life more efficient and clutter-free, and it’s also environmentally friendly.

A good place to start is by requesting electronic statements and opting out of printed ones from the companies who send you regular bills. Consider going paperless with your bank, credit card companies, your cell phone and

If you’re not already enrolled in direct deposit with your employer, make sure to get this set up. It saves a trip to the bank on payday, and you get to enjoy the fruits of your labors sooner.

While you’re at it, go ahead and request electronic receipts at the store when they’re offered in lieu of stuffing them in your pockets or purse.

Consolidate where you can.

There are several corners of your financial life that can be simplified through consolidation. Retirement accounts are one of those areas. If you’ve worked for several employers during the course of your career, you’ve probably acquired a few retirement accounts along the way.

Accumulated assets left in a former employer’s retirement account are still yours, but they sometimes offer less investment flexibility. If you like the idea of having fewer accounts to keep track of, or if you prefer to actively manage your retirement dollars, consider consolidating stray 401(k) and IRA dollars by rolling them into a centralized retirement account. There’s a lot to consider when it comes to rollovers so it’s important to weigh all of your options carefully.

(Consider a direct rollover, as with-

holding tax and tax penalties may apply for cash withdrawals.)

Credit cards and debt are two other areas where consolidation may be wise. Is it time to chop up the card that carries a hefty annual fee? Are you carrying a credit card balance that is snowballing due to high interest rates? It may be financially advantageous to pay off the cards with the highest interest rates and either close the account or put it away for emergency use only. It’s a relief to have fewer cards to manage, along with a plan for extinguishing debt.

Turn to the professionals.

As you sort through your financial choices, enlist the right team of professionals to assist you. Helpful professionals may include a tax advisor or an accountant who can provide guidance on how to put you in the best tax situation, and a lawyer who specializes in estate planning. Also, consider consulting a financial advisor who can help you to streamline your financial life and accelerate your financial goals by recommending specific strategies based on your individual situation. Each of these professionals can share their expertise with you, and help you to eliminate unnecessary financial clutter.

Brandon Miller, CFP, is a financial consultant at Brio Financial Group, A Private Wealth Advisory Practice of Ameriprise Financial Inc. in San Francisco, specializing in helping LGBT individuals and families plan and achieve their financial goals.

Sometimes, You Just Have to Be Practical f igures have been tracking higher than the Honda Civic’s by 30 percent or so, though that might shift back to Honda’s favor when the overhauled 2016 Civic hits dealers this fall.

Auto Philip Ruth Practical can mean many things.

Maybe you’d downsize your drag wardrobe by ruling out anything that hasn’t seen the stage in a year.

Or you’d skip the fries with the terrific chicken sandwiches that go so well with watching the game at Hi Tops.

Or, if you were being practical when shopping for a car, then you’d pr obably c on s ider a small Toyota.

The Yaris is Toyota’s smallest car, and the recent redesign limits it to a hatchback with two or four doors, which is good news to those who thought the previous Yaris sedan looked like a half-baked loaf Toyota Corolla of bread. The Yaris is built in France and is a mainstay in Toyota’s European markets. It competes directly with the Honda Fit, and the Fit just about triples the Yaris’s sales here.

The Corolla is the compact sedan that needs no introduction. Its sales Toyota Yaris

Toyota is hoping to blunt the new Civic’s impact with a 2016 Corolla Special Edition, which purports to be serious and sporty like a Nasty Pig jockstrap. It is accessorized with bigger blacked-out wheels, an interior with red stitching and unique badges.

Both the tested Toyotas were the sportier versions of each—the Yaris SE and the Corolla S. Both have stiffer suspensions to go with their sharp exterior accents, and larger wheels with machined f inishes. If you’d like to balance your practicality with a bit of style, then these versions deliver.

That is, until you put your foot in them. Despite the suspension tun-

ing, neither car drove as sporty as it looked. For the Yaris, it was the thin grip of its tires, which slid wide of your line before much fun was had.

The Corolla had better grip, but the steering’s on-center feel was vague, which zeroed out the zingy feeling of cars like the Mazda3, for example.

The engines in both were noisy when pressed.

But hang on. We’re being practical, right? You don’t have to spend much for them: the Yaris L starts under $15K, and the Corolla L skirts $17K. The test cars pushed those prices to $20K for the Yaris SE and $24K for the Corolla S Premium.

Both have well-designed interiors with quality plastics and soft surfaces in the right places. The Corolla’s bluff-faced dashboard is sometimes hard to see over as you crest San Francisco’s steepest hills, while the Yaris is fairly wideopen. Both have center touchscreens, though the Yaris’s is smaller with lower resolution.

Both have blessedly tight turning radiuses for city driving. The Yaris kills it here, with just 31.5 feet needed to swing a Uturn.

So while it’s fun to be sporty, we all eventually need to be practical. If that’s the prime directive in your car search, then the Yaris and Corolla are good places to start.

Philip Ruth is a Castro-based automotive photojournalist and consultant at www. gaycarguy.com. Check out his automotive staging service at www.carstaging.com BAY T IM ES JULY 9, 2015

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The Story of ‘Me’

of their lives trying to escape the perception that they really do deserve the contempt with which they were treated when they were young. It appears that, surprisingly early in life, a kind of “hardening of the categories” sets in. During the years when our minds have the least capacity for mature and balanced assessments, our ideas about who we are and what we can expect from other people solidify into a sense of a solid identity that, once formed, is remarkably resistant to change. The consequence is that many of us spend the rest of our lives trying to resolve “problems” that are fundamentally fictitious.

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Examined Life Tom Moon, MFT How many of us know who we really are? After more than thirty-five years as a psychotherapist, I’ve come to believe that genuine self-awareness is relatively rare. It seems that, for most of us, our egos begin, in early childhood, to organize around experiences of what is lacking or missing, and to live from then on in a “story of me” based on these perceptions.

A child who is unloved, for instance, may tragically spend a lifetime trying to solve the “problem of my unlovability.”

Some people who escape crushing childhood poverty may spend the rest

Many very successful people are dogged by “failure” identities, which strikingly demonstrate how often massive evidence to the contrary can fail to disconfirm our grim convictions.

When reality and our identities conflict, many of us go through some remarkable mental gymnastics to preserve the identities. All too many successful people experience themselves as impostors, for instance. In the impostor syndrome, it is my failures and disappointments that are real: my achievements and successes, since they conflict with the “story of my failure,” are dismissed as flukes or con jobs.

But when real experiences of victimization congeal into a solid identity, we can start to see those around us as perpetrators no matter what they do, and ourselves as the victims of injustice no matter how badly we treat others. People with this psychology can be very dangerous to others because they tend to perpetrate from the victim stance. And they’re able to do this without guilt, because they view themselves as innocents who are merely defending themselves no matter how egregious their actual behavior is. One of the most famous historical examples of this psychology was Adolf Hitler, who avenged himself on millions for the (very real) abuse he

suffered as a child.

Fortunately, we aren’t all puppets of our childhood conclusions because our human capacity for self-reflection and self-awareness can do much to correct distorted self-perceptions. In my experience, a highly effective treatment for “the story of me” is a combination of cognitive therapy and mindfulness meditation practice.

In cognitive therapy, we learn to pay careful attention to our “top ten tunes”—to the recurrent background themes and ideas with which we give meaning to our experience. In mindfulness practice, we learn to be present to our direct experience as it arises, prior to our ideas and interpretations about what it means. In being conscious of what is actually here, we gain access to the freshness and ungraspable aliveness of our immediate experience, and begin to understand that any fixed ideas about ourselves are inevitably one-sided and misleading. That makes it more possible to appreciate the fundamentally unfathomable mystery of our own being.

Tom Moon is a psychotherapist in San Francisco. To learn more, please visit his website at tommoon.net

Round About - SF Pride Press Party

SF Pride’s annual Press Party for 2015, held at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf and sponsored by Hard Rock Cafe, proved to be a highlight of the season of Pride activities. Featuring an interactive session for journalists and photographers with Grand Marshals and this year’s special honorees, the event also included the unveiling of the wax image of actress Laverne Cox. This is the first ever wax figure of a transgender person.

PHOTO BY JOHN CALDERA

CONTRIBUTORS Writers Rink, Sister Dana Van Iquity, Ann Rostow, Kirsten Kruse, Kate Kendell, Heidi Beeler, Gary M. Kramer, Dennis McMillan, Tom Moon, Terry Baum, Gypsy Love, Rafael Mandelman, Kit Kennedy, Phil Ting, Rebecca Kaplan, Leslie Katz, Philip Ruth, Bill Lipsky, Karen Williams, Donna Sachet, Gary Virginia, Zoe Dunning, Marcy Adelman, Stuart Gaffney & John Lewis Brandon Miller, Jamie Leno Zimron Rebecca Kaplan, Thom Watson, Courtney Lake, Michele Karlsberg Photographers Rink, Steven Underhill, Phyllis Costa, Cathy Blackstone, Robert Fuggiti, Chloe Jackman, Bill Wilson, Jo-Lynn Otto, Sandy Morris, Abby Zimberg

PHOTO BY RINK

E-mail: editor@sfbaytimes.com www.sfbaytimes.com

Not all of our mental maps are about what’s wrong with me; often deep distrust of others is built into the mental landscape. This is the case, for instance, in “the story of my victimization.” It can be very difficult to come to conscious clarity around the identity of “the one who will always be wronged by others,” because this story usually develops in response to actual experiences of (sometimes horrific) victimization or oppression, and challenging the story of victimhood is easy to confuse with denying the reality of those experiences.

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GLBT Fortnight in Review

By Ann Rostow

Marriage, Yes. Equality, Not Yet The f ight for marriage equality is over. Yes, perhaps a few clerks will balk here and there and the more conservative GOP candidates will continue to bluster, but the whistle has blown and we won. Even as I write, Mel is trying to figure out whom to call to put me on her school district’s health insurance. Yay! More than one commentator, however, has noted that “the fight is not over,” etc. etc. Much as I hate to parrot the crowd, it’s quite true. The fight for equality itself under the law as a general rule is still very much ongoing, since for all its passion, Justice Kennedy’s opinion in Obergefell v.

Hodges did not provide specific guidance on how gays and lesbians should be treated under the Equal Protection Clause. His ruling, although it touched on equality, was grounded in the fundamental rights all Americans receive under the Due Process Clause, which include the right to marry. Yes, we now have the right to marry under this rationale. But so do deadbeat dads and incarcerated prisoners, thanks to previous High Court marriage rulings. It would have been nicer to say that gays and lesbians deserve equal treatment in general, don’t you think?

That said, it’s not a time to be churlish, so I send my thanks to Justice Kennedy, our champion on the Court, who stood up for our humanity and dignity in a short, but eloquent, opinion. The four separate dissents were irritating in the extreme, but they will fade into legal history without a shadow.

edged in the Hobby Lobby decision, faith based accommodation does not trump civil rights under federal law.

Unfortunately for us, sexual orientation bias is not covered under federal law. It remains in limbo, providing a window for businesses and employers in many states to discriminate at will. Yes, we’ve read about the bakers and photographers who were nailed for refusing gay customers. But all of them operated in states where sexual orientation discrimination is not permitted.

In most states, no such protections exist. It’s great to be married. But in large parts of the country, there’s nothing stopping your boss from firing you once you get back from your honeymoon. In this day and age, you might be able to sue, hoping that a court might interpret Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in your favor.

But, hello? There’s a reason people use the expression “let’s not make a federal case out of it.” It’s hard, long and expensive.

You remember the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA). ENDA was riddled with inappropriate religious loopholes, and as a stand alone “gay exception” to federal workplace laws, it did not offer the same protections granted to women and minorities. It seems clear at this point that the main gay rights organizations have finally abandoned this archaic measure, and are ready to argue that sexual orientation should be added to the list of other groups now covered against bias nationwide. It’s about time, and it’s the surest way we will beat back the argument that “religious freedom” justifies overt prejudice.

One thing I’ll note. The neophytes who believed back in 2009 that it would be a slam dunk to race marriage equality to the High Court have perhaps learned in the last six years that the task was just as difficult as the GLBT legal community insisted at the time. We won by the skin of our teeth, and we did so by taking the smart route, first attacking the Defense of Marriage Act, and then pushing for marriage equality.

So that’s our next f ight. If Justice Kennedy had ruled that sexual orientation comprises a “suspect class” like race and gender, we would have already won. But although he came close, he left it to us to battle this out in state and federal legislatures. It’s also possible that a federal case on gay bias could rise to the nine justices, but our majority there is fragile, and a GOP president in 2016 could slam the door shut on further progress at the High Court.

To the Bakeries!

From Outlaws to In-laws

The challenge now before us is the (faux) conflict between gay rights and religious freedom. Here’s the bottom line: Religious freedom, rightly protected under the Constitution, does not include the “freedom” to mess with people you don’t like under the banner of faith. There’s no freedom to run a store that sells only to whites.

There’s no freedom to refuse a marriage license to a divorced woman.

There’s no freedom to require all male employees to grow beards. The list goes on, yet somehow we’ve allowed a debate to flourish over whether or not GLBT bias provides an exception to these established limits. Almost any viewpoint can be presented as a tenet of faith. But as a secular nation, these viewpoints do not enjoy unlimited protection under the law at the expense of fellow citizens.

The fight for bias protection is critical, but it’s never going to carry the emotional charge that brought marriage equality into the hearts of a majority of Americans. So in one sense, a dynamic phase of the gay rights movement now comes to an end.

Even our own community, working back in the day to pass various gay rights bills, agreed to wide ranging loopholes for religious groups and people of faith. That stance, pragmatic as it was at the time, gave credence to the notion that disdain for gay people is an accepted and legitimate part of the Judeo Christian ethic. That is simply not true. Yes, many conservative Christians “believe” that homosexuality is wrong. But they do so out of habit and longstanding prejudice, not faith.

The Constitution, as well as a range of laws, clearly protects our right to religious practice and expression.

But, as even Justice Alito acknowl-

And make no mistake, having won the right to marry, there’s no chance that we will fail in the larger fight for equality. The reason marriage was so important is that it took gay relationships out of the fringes of American society and wove them into its fabric.

The stereotypes that support bigotry are simply gone. We are no longer a subset of the various deviancies that range from bestiality to pedophilia.

We are not like alcoholics (not that there’s anything wrong with that); we’re like people with red hair.

It’s ironic that the movement that began with a call to sexual liberation now concludes with assimilation into the suburbs and the PTA. But although some people have bemoaned the loss of a GLBT subculture, many more of us recall the overall context of that subculture: shame, ridicule, hiding, violence, hostility and fear. I’ll shed no tears for the loss of community. It was always based on the shared persecution that brought middle-aged women together with teenaged boys in solidarity for the social ostracism that enveloped all of us in its cold embrace. I understand the nostalgia in a way. But I wouldn’t go back, and it’s not something that can ever be retrieved.

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Don’t be sad. We’ll always have the Castro. We’ll always have Greenwich Village. We’ll always have Cherry Grove and P’Town and all those wild gay memories. Well, some of us will.

You Millennials missed it.

Yeah, You Are Alone Last issue, I wrote about a woman who went to GoFundMe in order to finance new gay friendly yard ornaments. You remember. (For God’s sake, didn’t you read my column?)

She claimed a neighbor had complained about her “relentlessly gay” outdoor rainbow candles, and she pledged to take the decor over the top with the help of generous allies. Now it seems that she might be a fraud.

People noticed that the alleged letter from a neighbor matches the unorthodox style of her GoFundMe appeal, and she was unable to produce the letter for police. Oh, who knows? Who cares? I just had to mention this since I put in in print last time around.

And have you seen the annoying YouTube video produced by CatholicVote that aims to generate sympathy for the unpopular faction of young people who oppose marriage equality? The spot’s gimmick involves close ups of twenty-somethings who nervously hem and haw as if they were about to come out of the closet as gay. Using the catch phrase “you are not alone,” the actors then confess that they believe marriage is between one man and one woman—even though they have many gay friends! “I have tried to change this before,” says one sad looking female, “but it’s too important to me.”

Not to rehash the religious freedom screed launched earlier in this column, but the idea that participants in the shrinking anti-equality minority are becoming persecuted victims is infuriating. Being in the minority is new to them, and they apparently don’t like it very much. Tough. At least they don’t have to fight for civil rights, lose their jobs, or walk past a hardware store in East Tennessee that hangs a sign in the window saying “people who believe in traditional marriage” won’t be served.

The video has earned a slew of thumbs down from 11 out of every 12 viewers, and I watched a terrific satire where young men and women take turns bashfully telling the camera that they think women belong in the kitchen or the races should be segregated. “Bigoted is a huge word that gets thrown around,” says one, “… and that hurts me!”

Oh, and that hardware store in Tennessee with the “no gays allowed” sign took the sign down and replaced it with one that said: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone who would violate our rights of freedom of speech and religion.” Say what? First Amendment rights protect us against government abuse, not against a difference of opinion with our hardware store customers. Tennessee, by the way, is one of those places where it’s perfectly legal to ban gays from your business. On the other hand, most antigay business owners have suffered as much from outrage as ordinances, as both gay and straight customers stay away in droves at the first sign of overt prejudice. Is that a tear I see in the corner of Mr. Hardware’s eye? Are we being mean to you?

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How Dry I Am Just as I was about to launch into yet another incident involving antigay business owners, I took a break and Mel read my column up to this point, announcing it was “pretty dry.” Hmmm. It’s too late to start from scratch and rewrite the damn thing, but I feel a little def lated. (continued on page 26)

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BAY T IM ES JULY 9, 2015

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PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

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PHOTO BY RICK CAMARGO PHOTO BY GWEN PARK

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The 45th San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade was memorable and one for the history books. Held on Sunday, June 28th, the Parade’s theme “Equality Without Exception” was presented on the opening banner and float of the SF Pride Committee. With more than 200 contingents, Parade officials estimated the number of attendees at over 2 million in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s ruling that same-sex couples can wed in all 50 states.

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PHOTO BY MARSHA LEVINE

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PHOTO BY GWEN PARK

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PHOTO COURTESY OF OLIVIA TRAVEL

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Round About - Pink Saturday 2015 Pink Triangle Installation & Celebration Photos courtesy of Patrick Carney More than 200 volunteers joined founder Patrick Carney and his family in the 20th annual installation of the Pink Triangle atop Twin Peaks. Performances by the Lesbian & Gay Freedom Band and entertainer Leanne Borghesi and talks by civic leaders were among the highlights along with a pink balloon arch and a champagne toast.

Pride Brunch

PHOTO BY RINK PHOTO BY RINK

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PHOTO BY STEVEN UNDERHILL

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Gary Virginia and Donna Sachet welcomed a crowd of more than 300 to the 17th annual Pride Brunch.

The event honored the Pride Parade Grand Marshals, benefits Positive Resource Center and is held at the historic Hotel Whitcomb. Dixieland Dykes+3 provided entertainment and the menu featured an all-you-can-eat buffet. The event also included a silent auction and a host of LGBT movers and shakers.

PHOTO BY RINK

PHOTO BY RINK

Hundreds of exhibit booths were set-up a nd open for business on the Civic Center grounds as the Pride Festival kicked into gear on Saturday morning and continued throughout the afternoon.

PHOTO BY RINK

Pride Festival

Dyke March

PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

The San Francisco Dyke March for 2015 drew a huge crowd to Dolores Park for the afternoon Festival featuring a line-up of DJs, entertainers and speakers. Led by the Dykes on Bikes contingent, the March proceeded through streets of the Mission into the Castro.

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With more than 60,000 attending, according to the SF LGBT Community Center which organized the 2015 event, The Pink Party attracted a diverse cross section of community members. Taking over from the event previously hosted by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, leaders of The Center have ex pressed appreciation to all attending for a safe and successful street party in the Castro at the close of Pink Saturday.

PHOTO BY RINK

Pink Party

San Francisco Bay Times Contingent

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The San Francisco Bay Times Contingent for the 2015 SF Pride Parade included a record-breaking number of Women’s Music stars - more than ever before appearing together in a Pride Parade. “Celebrating 40 Years of Women’s Music” was the theme and three vehicles, including a Ride the Ducks amphibian and a Grayline double decker cable car, bore the San Francisco Bay Times banner. The popular all women drum corp Sistah Boom, led by Carolyn Brandy, escorted the vehicles along with a large group of safety monitors and volunteers.

Singers, musicians, technicians and producers included Linda Tillery, Boo Price, Melanie DeMore, Mary Watkins, Ellen Seeling, Jean Fineberg, Woody Simmons, Leslie Ann Jones, Sharon Washington, Sarah Bush, Ginny Berson, Regina Wells, Rashida Oji, Maria Cora, Anna Maria Flechero, Carrie Gerendasy, Janet Rachel, Karen Mullally, Debra Paschke, Judy Graboyes, Jen Foster who traveled from Nashville and others. Oakland Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan and her wife Pamela Rosin, artist and SF Commissioner Debra Walker and many others joined us.

Also included were advertisers, contributors and columnists Sister Dana, Elizabeth River and Naomi J plus a host of volunteers and friends. Our contingent won an award! For more on that, please see page 21.

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A Decision for the Ages

John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney, Marriage Equality USA The United States Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges establishing nationwide marriage equality will likely go down in history as one of the Court’s great landmarks.

The Court’s opinion not only embraces liberty and marriage equality for LGBTQ Americans, but also reaff irms the fundamental principles of American constitutional democracy. Although the opinion often uses terms such as “gays and lesbians” or “same-sex” couples and discusses sexual orientation, the Court’s holding brings marriage equality to all LGBTQ people and significantly advances the goals of freedom and equality in all aspects of our lives.

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Thinking about that special day?

Tell me about the wedding ceremony of your dreams.

The opinion begins by articulating the core American value of personal freedom: “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty…to def ine and express their identity.” The Court then explained how the Constitution is not shipwrecked in the 18th century, but lives today to protect Americans’ freedom and equality. In the Court’s words: “The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”

The court recognized implicitly the importance of decades of LGBTQ activism in creating change, explaining that “new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations, often through perspectives that begin in pleas or protests and then are considered in the political sphere and the judicial process.”

The Court then held that laws that exclude LGBTQ couples from marriage “burden the liberty of samesex couples, and…abridge central precepts of equality.” Such laws “are in essence unequal: same-sex couples are denied all the benefits afforded to opposite-sex couples and are barred from exercising a fundamental right.”

In explaining its decision, the Court emphasized the horr ible isolation that LGBTQ Americans have had to endure historically. In the Court’s words, for long “[a] truthful declaration by same-sex couples of what was in their hearts had to remain unspoken,” and for years“[s] ame-sex intimacy” was criminal in many states. The opinion refers to how historically many LGBTQ people had been “condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions,” marriage. The Court further noted that “[g]ays and lesbians were prohibited from most government employment, barred from military service, excluded under immigration laws, targeted by police, and burdened in their rights to associate.”

The Court spoke of the destructive nature of such prejudice and discrimination. “Especially against a long history of disapproval of [samesex] relationships, [the] denial…of the right to marry works a grave and continuing harm. The imposition of this disability on gays and lesbians serves to disrespect and subordinate them.”

The tone of the opinion is strikingly vivid, emotionally intelligent, and personal. We and many others have experienced a profound sense of dignity and pride at no longer being second-class citizens when it comes to marriage, but the Court also acknowledged how painful and lasting the human toll of disparagement and isolation is. In the Court’s words, “wounds [to our human dignity] cannot always be healed with the stroke of a pen.” In describing the limited benefit of incremental victories, such as decriminalization of same-sex love, the Court observed: “Outlaw to outcast may be a step forward, but it does not achieve the full promise of liberty.”

The opinion will significantly bolster future cases challenging sexual orientation discrimination because

the Court recognized the harmful effect of inequality on all lesbian and gay people, not just those in relationships. The Court held that the “exclusion” from marriage “has the effect of teaching that gays and lesbians are unequal in important respects. It demeans gays and lesbians for the State to lock them out of a central institution of the Nation’s society.” Denying LGBTQ people the right to marry “disparage[s] their choices and diminish[es] their personhood…”

The Court in its opinion also recognized explicitly for the first time that homosexual orientation is healthy and immutable, observing how “psychiatrists and others [have now] recognized that sexual orientation is both a normal expression of human sexuality and immutable.”

Although long obvious to millions of Americans and to every professional psychological or medical association, the Court’s recognition of these facts is very important to assuring success in future cases challenging unequal treatment based on sexual orientation.

The Supreme Court in its opinion also implicitly recognized the crime of Proposition 8 and all the other statewide measures that targeted LGBTQ Americans to deprive them of marriage equality and their basic human dignity. The Court did so by reasserting the central role of the Bill of Rights in our constitutional democracy. The opinion reassures all Americans that “[t]he Nation’s courts are open to injured individuals who come to them to vindicate their own direct, personal stake in our basic charter. An individual can invoke a right to constitutional protection when he or she is harmed, even if the broader public disagrees and even if the legislature refuses to act.” In the words of the Court, “[t] he idea of the Constitution ‘was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials…’ This is why ‘fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.’”

We could say many other things about the importance of this historic decision, but for now, we conclude with the last two lines of the opinion itself. By seeking marriage equality, LGBTQ people “ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney, together for three decades, were plaintiffs in the California case for equal marriage rights decided by the California Supreme Court in 2008. They are leaders in the nationwide grassroots organization Marriage Equality USA.

PHOTO BY JOHN CALDERA

Marriage Equality

The Court affirmed that two people “whatever their sexual orientation” may form an “enduring bond” in marriage and that can lead to greater “expression, intimacy, and spirituality.” Further, “gays and lesbians can create loving, supportive families,” and indeed “hundreds of thousands of children are presently being raised by [same-sex] couples” in “loving and nurturing homes…”

Put simply, the Court stated, “[t] here is no difference between sameand opposite-sex couples with respect to” these core matters. Yet same-sex marriage bans undermine the dignity of LGBTQ families, “harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples,” and “consign” same-sex couples “to an instability many opposite-sex couples would deem intolerable in their own lives.”

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All Faiths, All Beliefs, All Couples 18

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Kevin Tripp, Officiant

Speakers and entertainers throughout the day at the SF Pride Festival’s Main Stage at SF City Hall addressed and celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision announced two days prior on Friday, June 26.

Seven Wedding Blessings couples add other rituals: handfasting, unity candles, water rituals, tea ceremonies, honoring the parents, and often poetry and music.

But me? My favorite part is the blessing! We bless the couple on the next phase of their life’s journey, marriage, and when we bless the couple, everyone else is blessed too. Giving a blessing is also receiving one! (Blessings are like hugs that way.)

Weddings Reverend Elizabeth River As an Interfaith minister, I close most weddings with a blessing of some sort, whatever religious traditions the brides and grooms follow.

It is one of the traditional elements in most weddings across cultures and faith traditions worldwide.

These include the following:

Recently, I participated with the San Francisco Bay Times in the Pride Parade, and it was absolutely thrilling to experience all of that joy, celebration, gratitude, regeneration of spirit that were in the air everywhere!

It was truly a perfect synchronicity: the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right—the same month as Pride is celebrated all over the nation—and on the Friday of San Francisco’s fabulous Pride weekend!

May you be blessed with love.

May understanding between you bring a deep and abiding peace into your lives. May this love between you be strong and enduring.

May you be blessed with wisdom.

May you continue to learn from one another and the world.

May you be blessed with community. May you remember always your essential part in the circle of family and friends.

May you be aware always of the mutual love, trust, support and respect of your community.

May you be blessed with friendship. May your knowledge of one another, and the mutual sharing of your deepest truths and discoveries bring you closer over all the years of your life together, and you become better together than either of you is apart.

• Statement of intention (the “I do!” part)

So, in honor of Pride, in honor of “Love Wins,” in honor of marriage being totally available to every citizen, and in honor of every couple, married or not, I offer one of my favorite blessings:

May you be blessed with good health. May life bestow upon you wholeness of mind, body, and spirit. May you live long, so that you may share many more joyous, loving years together.

• Vows

Seven Wedding Blessings

• Exchanging of rings

In Jewish tradition, the couple are bestowed with seven wedding blessings. Seven is considered a mystical number. In Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, it is believed there are seven spheres of the soul and seven heavens. As we recite these blessings, we pray that you will enter into each other’s souls, and thus, experience the heaven of these blessings!

May you be blessed by nature in all her magnif icence. May you commune with nature and through it, experience a sense of transcendence.

• Welcome • Homily, or short message about marriage

• Blessing or prayer • Pronouncement • Kiss • Introduction of the new couple All of these elements are important, of course. Each has its place in the ceremony, and most couples favor some more than others. And many

May you experience peace in the center of this marriage.

Reverend Elizabeth River is an ordained Interfaith Minister based in the North Bay. For more information, please visit marincoastweddings.com

Marriage Equality Celebrated in Decision Day Rally, Street Party & Pride Parade Friday, June 26 was declared “Decision Day” in a City Hall rally led by NCLR’s Kate Kendell and her wife Sandy Holmes. Later in the day during a Decision Day Party in the Castro, San Francisco Bay Times columnists Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis joined Kendell and others in giving celebratory remarks.

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AT THE JCCSF

• Grand Ballroom • Intimate spaces • Underground parking • Warm welcome of inclusive community

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• On-site catering available

415.292.1269 jccsf.org/weddings

Marriage was a key theme among organizations marching in the 2015 Pride Parade, and Rev. Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church married Hydie Downard and Beate Siedler in a ceremony on the Main Stage in front of SF City Hall at Civic Center.

Sasha Photography

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19

What Would You Go After If You Had No Limitations?

ARIES (March 21–April 19) Stuck in a rut, Aries? Carve out time for creative inspiration. A mojo as marvelous as yours needs to renew and reboot on a regular basis. Plug into your pleasure zone.

Astrology Gypsy Love Our magnificent Milky Way is among 100 billion galaxies constantly scattering apart from each other in space. One would expect gravitational pull to slow this process eventually. And yet, in 2011, three cosmologists earned the Nobel Prize in Physics for proving just the opposite. A mysterious pressure is counteracting gravity, thus accelerating the expanding Universe! Astral waves urge us to match this vibration now. What would you go after if you had no limits? Get your groove on, and grow.

TAURUS (April 20–May 20) Loyalty is one of your signature traits. In fact, Taurus, anything you link up with is likely to leave a lasting legacy.

Consider this as you reevaluate current commitments.

GEMINI (May 21–June 20) T h i ng s a re heat i ng up, Gemini! Recent awakenings have revived your long-term goals.

Walk away from outdated perceptions of self-worth, and charge forward w ith utmost conf idence.

You’ve worked hard for this.

CANCER ( June 21–July 22) Come and get it, Cancer!

The planets present new opportunities to fatten your finances now. Feast on projects that foster authentic joy. Be willing to bank on your bliss.

LEO ( July 23–August 22) Live like you mean it, Leo. Contrasts at home and work are cosmically designed to help

clarify what you truly desire. Retrofit your daily routine so it supports your soul-center.

VIRGO (August 23–September 22) Vibe with your tribe now, Virgo. Kindred spirits are standing by to support your mission. Don’t keep them waiting!

Put yourself out there, and proclaim your purpose.

LIBRA (September 23– October 22) Lead with love, Libra. Social status and career both get a boost when you make choices that benefit the greater good. Practice the art of paying it forward.

CAPRICORN (December 22–January 19) Collaboration is key now, Capricorn.

Astrologically, you’re well suited to enjoy joint ventures now. Seek to connect with partners that complement your style and inspire your mind.

AQUARIUS ( January 20– February 18) Care for company, Aquarius? From a ce-

lestial standpoint, things are “on and poppin’” in your people pleasing department. Personal and professional companions could consume your attention now. Honor your boundaries.

PISCES (February 19–March 20) Get in the game, Pisces! Why tuck tremendous talent away when the world needs it now more than ever? Listen for cues from the Universe. You’re in excellent hands.

SCORPIO (October 23– November 21) Reach for it, Scorpio! The stars strengthen every effort to promote your professional prowess now. Embrace challenges that beef up your skill-set. Soon you’ll be summoned to strut your stuff.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22–December 21) Sweeten up, Sagittarius. You’re cosmically inclined to attract more beauty and grace into your life now. Pursue pat hw ay s t h at he lp you harmonize with a higher consciousness. Enhance your heart chakra.

Gypsy Love Productions is dedicated to inspiring love and unity with music, dance, and astrology. www.GypsyLoveProductions.com

compiled by Rink As Heard on the Street . . .

Now that we have marriage equality what is the next big issue for the LGBT community?

Deana Dawn

Gabriella Antoinette

Gilbert Baker

Heidi Beeler

“Transgenders!”

“Repeal the bill about barring transgender people from public bathrooms”

“Jobs!”

“Transgender inclusion so that the “T” in LGBT has equal importance”

Mark Abramson

“Make sure that the Supreme Court does not move further to the right by keeping the White House in the hands of a Democrat and that the Hillary haters should shut up and vote for her”

Steven Underhill

PHOTOGRAPHY

415 370 7152

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#KateClinton

The pope says we must treat Earth as we treat our mothers and sisters. Oy. We are so fracked.

Arts & Entertainment

Carolyn Brandy Is Born to Drum

Photos courtesy of Born to Drum

PHOTO BY SANDY MORRIS

All of us at the San Francisco Bay Times were completely blown away by legendary drummer Carolyn Brandy who, along with other incredible Women’s Music musicians, joined us at the San Francisco Pride Parade.

Thanks to their talent and performances, we won an “Absolutely Fabulous Musical Contingent” Award from SF Pride! Brandy and her powerful “Sistah Boom” drum corps literally led the way, marching ahead of our double-decker cable car packed with the largest assemblage of Women’s Music stars ever to appear in a Pride Parade contingent.

We all marveled at how Brandy effortlessly worked with her extremely talented team, inspiring them to reach their high potentials. She is a true professional, and it really shows.

Just watching her is a treat, as she is coolness personified. The rhythms created by Sistah Boom were so empowering that young girls (family members of some of our guests and team) woke up the next morning saying that they too wanted to be professional drummers.

The faculty includes musicians who have been drumming for most of their lives. They come from all over the globe: The Congo, Ghana, Venezuela, and Jamaica. Native American drumming will also be represented. The camp additionally includes classes in Mid-Eastern, Cuban, Brazilian and West African drumming. There will be improvisation, as well as drum circles. This is a camp for beginners to advanced drummers, and there will be drums available for those who don’t have their own.

Brandy, who co-founded both Sistah Boom and the band Alive!, started drumming way back in 1968. She quickly learned that women were not supposed to “do that kind of thing.”

Undaunted, she broke through many taboos related to women drumming, and further learned that such destructive customs not only existed in the U.S., but also that the “women don’t drum” rule was prevalent all over the world. From Africa to Asia to Latin America and more, this cultural taboo was firmly upheld for years.

As a result, the women who gathered at those first Born to Drum Camps all shared stories about the abuse they had received in their countries because of the restrictive mentality.

Some were told that if they drummed

Carolyn Brandy

PHOTO BY SANDY MORRIS

Now you or the women in your life can learn from Brandy at the Born to Drum Women’s Drum Camp, July 17, 18 and 19, at Bort Meadows, Chabot Regional Park, Oakland.

This year is the highly successful camp’s 9th anniversary. The program offers a weekend of camping, camaraderie and fun, with drum workshops and circles taught not only by Brandy, but also by some of the other best known and respected women drummers in the world.

Sistah Boom members and friends at the 2015 SF Pride Parade: Latoya Williams, Elaine Magree, Julia La Chica, Regina Wells Rashida Oji, Carolyn Brandy, Mar Stevens, Angela Niles, Sandy Mills, Suzy Jones, Anne Skeffington and Joyce Baker.

The San Francisco Bay Times Pride Parade Contingent Won an Award!

Thanks to the support of so many of you, the San Francisco Bay Times/Betty’s List Pride Parade Contingent won an “Absolutely Fabulous Musical Contingent” award from SF Pride! This year, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the National Women’s Music Festival by featuring a recordbreaking number of Women’s Music stars, many of whom performed as we went down Market Street.

In addition to earning the award, we therefore made history too!

they would bleed to death, that their breasts would fall to the ground, or that they could be killed if they dared to teach other women.

Fortunately, the old paradigms have been changing in the last 20 years. There are now millions of women playing and wanting to play drums all over the world. And why not?

The drum is a magical instrument, a call to gather, a circle of community, and a healing medicine. The first sound we hear is the beating of our mother’s heartbeat. The drum is a woman!

So treat yourself this summer and come to Born to Drum. Experience the wonderful and magical activity of joining with others to make music, to play

drums, to sing and dance, and to learn about other cultures. Come for a day or come for the weekend. The cost is a sliding scale: Day passes are $50–100 per day. The cost of the whole weekend is a sliding scale of $150–450/full weekend.

For more information and to register, please go to www.womendrummers.org or phone 510-464-5902.

Sister Merry Peter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who was one of the judges at the SF Pride Parade, told us that “the energy and pure joy of your entire contingent…exemplified the theme of the day ‘Equality Without Exception.’”

Sr. Merry Peter added, “Your contingent represents how our community pulls together and draws on the power and energy of each of us to create this special place we call home.

Especially in the way you and the Bay Times share news and keep us informed about what’s happening, you create the important links that help us all stay in touch and ensure that we remember, even as we celebrate #LoveWins, that our work is not over until every single member of our community, and of this country, shares in that joy equally.”

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Don’t Miss Tangerine, Shot Entirely on an iPhone

Presents

The Annual José Sarria Community Celebration

In fond memory of La Grandmere, Absolute Empress I de San Francisco, and The Widow Norton This annual celebration honors individuals and organizations who carry on the spirit of José’s service, activism and flair while supporting the vital work of Openhouse on behalf of LGBT seniors.

This year a toast and roast of José’s dear friend and community icon

Film Gary M. Kramer Frameline and June Pride are a wrap for this year, but queer films continue to play in Bay Area cinemas.

Boulevard, opening July 17, is a curious, melancholic character study of the sexually repressed Nolan (Robin Williams in his final leading role) coming to terms with his same-sex desires at age 60. Coping with a dying father, up for a promotion at work, and deceiving his wife (Kathy Baker), Nolan sabotages his carefully maintained life when he develops an obsession with Leo (Roberto Aguire), a street hustler. Paying the youth for talk not sex—which befuddles Leo— Nolan finds meaning in his life. But Boulevard feels stagy, not meaningful, and the contrived script is as dull and obvious as Nolan. Moreover, the erratic protagonist is not particularly sympathetic, despite Williams’ noble efforts.

Also opening July 17 is Tangerine, Sean Baker’s funky little comedy, shot entirely on an iPhone. The film, which is full of dram-ah, concerns motormouthed transgender prostitute Sindee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) finding out from her BFF Alexandra (Mya Taylor) that her boyfriend Chester (James Ransome) has been cheating on her while she’s been in jail. As Sin-dee wanders around Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, trying to find Chester, Alexandra wants to focus on her performance (continued on page 26)

Sister Dana Sez: Words of Wisdumb

from a Fun Nun

modeled on the African American slogan “Black is beautiful!”

Thursday, August 20, 2015 / 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

San Francisco LGBT Community Center Emcee Donna Sachet, Absolute Empress XXX Event Chairs JP Leddy, Peacock Prince Collette Le Grande Ashton, Grand Duchess VII & XXXIII China Silk, Absolute Empress XXXIX Event Committee Lenny Broberg Edgar de Leon Joel Evans & ACE St. George Gary Gallagher Bob Glas Kevin Lisle, Reigning Emperor of San Francisco Will Roscoe Khmera Rouge, Reigning Empress of San Francisco Donna Sachet, Absolute Empress XXX Dr. Betty L. Sullivan Ray Tilton, Prince to the Council of Emperors Jennifer Viegas Sam Vasquez Paloma Volare St. James, Grand Duchess XXXX TJ Wilkinson, King of Hearts 2013 BUY TICKETS AND CONVEY A TRIBUTE / Tickets available now at openhouse-sf.org/Marlena Even if you can’t come, be sure to add your tribute to “A Book of Tributes” BECOME A SPONSOR / Contact Joel Evans to become a sponsor: joel@openhouse-sf.org.

You’ll be in good company, with Airbnb, Café Flore, Hot Coookies, JP Morgan Chase, Twin Peaks Tavern, the SF LGBT Center, Tito’s Vodka and many others.

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By Sister Dana Van Iquity Sister Dana sez, “Unless you are living under a rock, you are aware of gay and lesbian marriage rights achieved nationwide. Love conqueers all! But that’s just the latest stop on the freedom train. Next stop ahead is the Employment NonDiscrimination Act aka ENDA, which is kinda the end-a queer discrimination.”

A coalition of equality advocacy groups and aligned citizens, in collaboration with national groups advocating for equality - including Marriage Equality USA, GLAAD, Freedom to Marry, Family Equality Council, and National LGBTQ Task Force - presented DAY OF DECISION, a huge party in the Castro celebrating The Supremes being on the right side of history - for a change. Gay marriage was now a thing.

Everywhere! Appearances were made on stage by community leaders, samesex couples, faith leaders, and leaders in the movement for marriage equality.

There was deejaying, live music, and all manner of performances. The event concluded peacefully and joyfully.

The special PRIDE version of NIGHTLIFE was the Thursday before the Pride Parade at CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. Did you know that some of our favorite celestial constellations have queer histories? We learned a lot in the special planetarium presentation of STARGAYZE. This once a year Pride special taught us about the ancient gods and goddesses and their gay, lesbian, and transgender same-sex sexual relationships that are not taught on any other night but this one. The narrator at the Planetarium informed us that the slogan “Gay is Good!” was coined by early gay activist Frank Kameny,

In 1957, Kameny was dismissed from his position as an astronomer in the U.S. Army’s Army Map Service in Washington, D.C. because of his homosexuality, leading him to begin a Herculean struggle with the American establishment that would spearhead a new period of militancy in the homosexual rights movement of the early 1960s. Kameny formally appealed his firing by the U.S. Civil Service Commission due to homosexuality.

Although unsuccessful, the proceeding was notable as the first known civil rights claim based on sexual orientation pursued in a U.S. court. He has been referred to as one of the most significant figures in the American gay rights movement.

In the Osher Rainforest, we explored a lush, four-story rainforest teeming with life. In the Coral Reef, we experienced the wonders of creatures below and above the sea, to the fabled funk and soul stylings of Hard French DJs. Inside the Piazza, we unleashed our inner dance floor diva with a high-energy set

by DJ Workalook. Alas, I missed the drag show hosted by drag queen extraordinaire Heklina, featuring Matthew Martin, Mahlae Balenciaga, Sexitude, and Holotta Tymes - because I got so engaged with all the fascinating undersea creatures and a live albino alligator. Awesome!

SAN FRANCISCO GAY MEN’S CHORUS wrapped up their 37th season with a rollicking, joyous sing-along, ELTON: THE SING-ALONG” at Nourse Theater, under the baton of SFGMC’s Artistic Director & Conductor Dr. Tim Seelig - featuring the best of Sir Elton John. From the worlds of pop music, film, and Broadway, they belted out some of Elton’s most iconic melodies such as “Rocket Man,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Can You Feel The Love Tonight,” “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me,” and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” The Lollipop Guild, SWAG, and Vocal Minority - three groups (continued on page 26)

Decorating Your First Digs Consistent Scheme Stick with one central theme to create a unified and cohesive look. Create a color scheme based on an existing item, such as a rug or an art piece. Pull three to four colors from that item to create a color scheme for the space. Then apply the neutral to the walls as paint, and leave the boldest color for accents like vases or throw pillows.

Style Courtney Lake If Pride was any indication, San Francisco is bursting with the recently graduated. Having dreamed of living on their own, these sweet, naïve youngsters are full of lofty ideas on how they will decorate their first place. But the reality of living on one’s own is far from glamorous. Freedom often means roommates, cramped spaces and worse: shared bathrooms.

After paying for rent, food, transportation and the occasional night out, extra funds for decorating can be scarce. This month we will be discussing how a young professional can create a stylish and hip first apartment without breaking the bank!

Beg, Borrow, Thrift Don’t be afraid of borrowing furniture from friends and family to save. People are more often quite happy to give unused furniture a good temporary (and frequently permanent) home. While beggars can’t be choosers, be selective on what you borrow. I tend to recommend looking for pieces that have a mid-century feeling, which ensures that when mixed with new furniture the space has depth and character that can’t be obtained with all new big box store purchases.

Rethink Your Key Investments “Design rules” dictate purchasing the best sofa you can afford. I disagree.

At this stage in life, the best sofa one can afford will probably not be a sofa

Game Plan It may sound like a broken record, but space planning is key when working in a small place with a confined budget. A well thought out floor plan avoids costly mistakes and ensures maximum usage from the square footage available. When possible, create designated areas or “zones” in your space to function as the entry, office entertaining/lounging and sleeping. Then assign each zone a set of functions and choose furniture to accommodate those activities.

you will have long term. Invest in a great chair—it will last longer than a sofa, and be more flexible when you move into a new space.

Ask for Some Shade(s) Most landlords hate it when clients install window treatments themselves. Poorly installed drapery or shades can wreck havoc on window casings and walls.

While it may seem bold, ask your landlord if they would be willing to pay for new treatments. Sweeten the pot by stating you will pay for a portion of them if you can help select the options.

Remind your landlord that the initial investment would mean less wear and tear on the unit than drilling into the walls to install drapery rods.

Multi-Use Furniture In a small space, you want to put in the least amount of furniture possible, since small pieces eat up valuable space.

Find items that can do double duty like a side table that could sub as a stool, or a desk that can play triple duty as an office, entertainment center and a dining table easily seating 4-6.

Live it up and have fun with your first apartment! Decorating your first home should be an enjoyable experience that you remember fondly.

Whether it is vintage finds or all Ikea, take the time to create a little oasis to call your own.

Courtney Lake is the interior designer and lifestyle expert behind Monogram Décor (www.monogramdecor.com) and its celebrated blog, “Courtney Out Loud.” His work and writings have appeared on television and in writing including “The Wall Street Journal,” “The Nate Berkus Show,” the “San Francisco Chronicle,” “Life & Style Magazine,” “RUE Magazine,” “Real Simple,” “This Old House” and “7x7 Magazine.”

Visibility

Words Michele Karlsberg Michele Karlsberg: Are there underrepresented groups or ideas featured in your book/ books? If so, discuss them.

Nathan Burgoine: One of the things about being queer that’s a challenge is that we’re (usually) not born to queer families. There’s no “passing on” of the culture from parent to child in most instances, and certainly mainstream education skips us on by. We have to go find ourselves and our representation.

include more intersectionality to my queer characters—it’s woeful how very white, cisgendered, and neurotypical the characters of queer fiction are, in general. In my novella in On the Run, I tried hard to translate what it’s like to have seizures with the main character. His best friend, a half-Japanese, half-Caucasian lesbian, is by far more his family than his biological one. The idea of a “chosen” family is one I try to visit often in my work, and I think that’s a major piece of being queer.

Nathan Burgoine’s debut novel “Light” was a finalist for the SF/F/Horror Lambda Literary Award. He lives in Ottawa, Canada , with his husband Daniel and their rescued husky Coach.

I’ve always tried to write books I wanted to read when I was younger—speculative fiction, mostly. Our world, but with a dash of the psychic or the magic or just something “other” thrown in that steps off from lived reality. But what I never found was a character like me—a queer kid, when I was younger, or even much in the way of queer adults, period. That’s changing, of course, and with speculative f iction crossing so many boundaries, now I’m pleased to say I’m one of many adding queer voices to the genre.

MB Cashetta: I grew up in an Italian-American home in Upstate New York, which means I grew up uncomfortably queer in a Catholic environment. And yet I always thought that the pure message I heard in church (where I spent a lot of t i me) was inclusive of everyone — even l it t le lesbian me. Only did the human additions—editorializing, dogma, and interpretation—actually count me out. But I just kept right on stubbornly believing that God had it right in loving me for being me, and people had it wrong in hating me for being queer.

Now that I’m feeling a bit more settled in the craft, I’m also trying to

Miracle G irls: A Novel attempts to create a

world i n wh ich there is a driving spiritual force toward convincing l it t le g i rls t hey a re pr i zed a nd convincing queer Editor Jerry Wheeler k i d s t h a t t h e y are God’s chosen ones. (Imagine a world in which everyone believes this is true!)

Writing a book about queerness and faith can be tricky. It has to balance grim reality with hope and light. The world of the novel is indeed a gritty place, where violence against girls is directly related to violence against queer kids.

QUIT SMOKING WITH GROUP SUPPORT NEXT CLASS BEGINS ON July 15th!

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Ultimately, I wanted to write a book about resisting violence on every level, so I started with the abuse of individual girls and queer children and moved right on up to war. This is where the radical, anti-Vietnam War, peace-protesting nuns with their “Secret Or phan Peace Army for Girls” come marching in. And this is why Miracle Girls is ultimately a novel about promoting peace in a violent world.

MB Caschetta is the author of “Miracle Girls: A Novel,” which was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist, an Independent Publisher’s Gold Medalist, and is nominated for two IndieFAB Book of the Year Awards in the LGBT and spiritual categories.

Michele Karlsberg Marketing and Management specializes in publicity for the LGBT community. This year, Karlsberg celebrates twenty-six years of successful book campaigns.

BAY T IM ES JULY 9, 2015

23

See many more Calendar items @ www.sfbaytimes.com

compiled by Robert Fuggiti

• 9 : T HURSDAY

• 16 : T HURSDAY

Loud and Unladylike - Exit Theatre. $10. 8 pm. (156 Eddy St.) A staged reading festival featuring new plays by local playwrights. Also July 10-11.www.theexit.org

Solo Performance Theater – Stage Werx. $12. 7 pm. (446 Valencia St.) A monthly showcase of independent, queer performance theater and storytelling. www.stagewerx.org

Switch Tango Class - SF LGBT Center. Free. 7 pm. (1800 Market St.) A queer-led/all-welcome free class and practice session in Argentine Tango with a hint of Fusion Social Dance. www.sfcenter.org

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare California Theatre Center. $10-25.

7:30 pm. (550 East Remington Dr., Sunnyvale) A delightfully wacky romp through Shakespeare’s works in under two hours. Through July 26. www.ctcinc.org

Detroit - Aurora Theatre Company. $33-$50. 8 pm. (2081 Addison St.) A comical satire about surviving the deflating economic times. Through July 26. www.auroratheatre.org

• 10 : F RIDAY

Top Girls - Shotgun Players. $30. 8 pm. (1901 Ashby Ave, Berkeley) Caryl Churchill’s timeless masterpiece asks all the right questions about the struggle to “have it all.”

Through August 2. www.shotgunplayers.org The Desk Set - Exit Theatre. $20.

8 pm. (156 Eddy St.) A clever comedy about four women researchers who find their careers threatened by technological advancements.

Through July 24. www.exittheatre.com Each and Every Thing - The Marsh. $20-$35. (1063 Valencia St.) The newest solo show from awardwinning actor/playwright Dan Hoyle about how we experience the world in the digital age.

Through July 18. www.themarsh.org

Charlie Shoemaker, Bora “Max” Koknar, and Stefan Fisher in California Theatre Center’s production of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” (abridged). Photo by Benjamin Brotzman

• 11 : S ATURDAY • 12 : S UNDAY

• 14 : T UESDAY

Clay and Glass Festival - Palo Alto Art Center. Free. 10 am to 5 pm. (1313 Newell Rd., Palo Alto) The prestigious and popular 23rd Annual Palo Alto Clay & Glass Festival hosts a fabulous, free, funfilled two-day celebration of clay and glass art. www.acga.net

Flower Piano - SF Botanical Garden. Free. 7:30 pm. San Francisco Botanical Garden (SFBG) becomes the city’s own outdoor concert hall and everyone is invited to play and listen. July 9-20. www.sfbotincalgardensociety.org

Castro Valley Pride - Castro Valley High School. Free. 12 pm.

(19400 Santa Maria Ave.) Enjoy a day of family events, games and performances. www.castrovalleypride@gmail.com

Freedomland - Live Oak Park.

Free. 2 pm. The SF Mime Troupe presents its musical drama, Freedomland. www.sfmt.org

Thoroughly Modern Millie Montgomery Theater. $14-$18. 1 pm. (271 South Market St., San Jose) Enjoy Sutton Foster’s Thoroughly Modern Millie, winner of the 2002 Tony Awards for Best Musical. Through July 19. www.cmtsj.org The Book of Mormon – San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. $45-$178. 7:30 pm. (255 Almaden Blvd., San Jose) The ninetime Tony Award winning Best Musical from the creators of South Park. Closing night! www.sanjosetheaters.org Macy Gray - Yoshi’s Oakland. $47.

9 pm. (510 Embarcadero West, Oakland) A truly gifted songwriter and brilliantly unique vocalist, Macy first entered the international musical arena with her hit single “I Try” and soon became an instant global superstar. www.yoshis.com

July Make Contact/Power Lunch - Hotel Whitcomb. $55.

11:30 am to 1:30 pm. (1231 Market St.) Join the GGBA and friends for a dynamic, powerful, inspiring event that provides participants with great connections and tools to grow their business. www.ggba.org

LGBT Life Outside the Bay Area Bubble - Merrill Lynch.

Free. 6 pm to 8 pm. (555 California St.) Join the Horizons Foundation and uncover where LGBT rights and equality generally lag, and how you can help advance equality across the country. www.horizonfoundation.org

Women’s Drum Camp Women Drummers International. $150-$450. 4 pm. (Bort Meadow, Anthony Chabot Regional Park) Join for a weekend of women, drums and camping, with shared meals, music, and fireside stories.

July 17-19. www.womendrummers.org Little Boots - Rickshaw Stop. 9 pm. $20-25. (155 Fell St.) Singersongwriter Little Boots peforms songs from her latest album, “Business Pleasure.” www.rickshawstop.com Don’t Stop Me - Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts. $28. 7 pm. (1428 Alice St.) Youth Musical Theater Company presents the world premier of its award-winning musical. Through July 26. www.ymtberkeley.org

The Art of Active Networking - The Box SF. $20.

6:30 pm. (1069 Howard St.) Discover a new way to network while making new connections in the process. www.theartofactivenetworking.com

Men’s Health Seminar - SF LGBT Community Center. Free.

5:30 pm. (1800 Market St.) Sexual health expert Dr. Edward Karpman provides a free seminar to address common problems affecting the gay man. www.sfcenter.org

• 15 : W EDNESDAY

Political Roundtable - The Commonwealth Club. $5-15. 6:30 pm. (555 Post St.) Expert commentary that is smart, civil and humorous. www.thecommonwealthclub.com

Last Drag - SF LGBT Center.

Free. 7 pm. (1800 Market St.) The Last Drag is a free quit smoking class for LGBT and HIV positive smokers who are ready to become nonsmokers. www.sfcenter.org

• 18 : S ATURDAY

Married Once Gay Men’s Support Group - SF LGBT Center. Free. (1800 Market St.) This is a support group for men who have or have had significant heterosexual relationships and who are also attracted to men. www.sfcenter.org

Chicago + Earth, Wind and Fire Tour - Concord Pavillion. $69+. 7:30 pm. (2000 Kirker Pass Rd, Concord) This is a real treat for fans of both groups to experience again the power-packed collaboration of Earth,Wind & Fire and Chicago! www.theconcordpavillion.com

A program of The Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation

BAY TIMES JULY 9 , 2 0 1 5

• 17 : F RIDAY

Craft Fair - Fort Mason. Free. 12 pm to 5 pm. (Fort Mason Pavilion) Partake in an exciting weekend of shopping for handmade wares, participating in DIY workshops, and exploring installations and activities with some of the best indie craft makers. July 17-19. www.renegadecraft.com

• 13 : M ONDAY

24

Queer Nation - GLBT History Museum. $7. 8 pm. (4127 18th St.) Join the GLBT History Museum for a 25th anniversary reunion of Queer Nation Veterans with Q&A discussion. www.glbthistory.org

Resource Guide to over 250 SF LGBT nonprofits, arts and athletic groups and their events

Trans Writers - Laurel Bookstore. Free. 6:30 pm. (1423 Broadway, Oakland) Join Willy Wilkinson, Georgia Kolias, Zander Keig and Transgress Press. www.laurelbookstore.com Night Light Garden Party SOMArts Cultural Center. $12.

8:30 pm. (934 Brannan St.) The 5th annual art show featuring luminous art exhibits and performances from over 50 unique artists. www.smarts.org Cut Copy DJs - Mezzanine SF. $20-25. 8 pm. (444 Jessie St.) Cut Copy DJs are Dan Whitford and Tim Hoey, the frontman and guitarist of the band Cut Copy. www.mezzaninesf.com

• 19 : S UNDAY

AIDS Walk - Golden Gate Park.

Donation based. 8:35 am. (Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park) Benefiting Project Inform and HIV/ AIDS programs and services throughout the Bay Area. www.sfaidswalk.net Sunday’s a Drag Brunch – The Starlight Room. $60. 12 pm to 2:30 pm. (450 Powell St.) Donna Sachet hosts an elegant brunch with modern dance numbers, classic singing, and comedy. www.starlightroomsf.com

This Month at The Market!

ALLARD FARMS: Allard has a huge selection of summer's best organic stone fruit like peaches, nectarines, plums, pluots, and sweet dried fruits. Try their interesting apriums, a cross between apricots and plums. Put them on the grill for a amazing treat.

Mary Poppins - Woodminister Amphitheatre. $26-$59. 8 pm.

(3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., Oakland) Everyone’s favorite practically perfect nanny takes the stage in this musical adventure. www.woodminister.com

PRATHER RANCH: This is the place to come for your picnic roasts like lamb, rib roast, pork loins, and more.

Prather Ranch offers beef from their sustainable 30,000-acre ranch. They're known for their dry-aged natural beef program. They have a variety of beef cuts, sausages, ground beef. Fire up the grill!

• 20 : M ONDAY

Socrates Cafe - The Commonwealth Club. $5. 6:30 pm.

(555 Post St.) Each meeting is devoted to the discussion of a philosophical topic chosen at that meeting. www.commonwealthclub.org

Faux Real - Shotgun Players. $15$20. 8 pm. (1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley) Faux Real revels in the tension between the glamour of performance and the intimacy of presence. Also July 21. www.shutgunplayers.org

Absol utely Fabulous Tours

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MARKET MATCH! Don't forget to use your CalFresh dollars at the market and get a match up to $10 for additional money to spend on seasonal fruits and veggies. pcfma.com/castro

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DESIGN : LOGOMAN : logomantotherescue.com

GGBA Events Committee Illy Coffee. Free for GGBA members. 7:30 am to 9 am. (2349 Market St.) Members of GGBA are invited to join a planning committee for future GGBA events. www.ggba.org

ARATA FARMS: Arata returns to the Castro for the summer months with stonefruit like peaches, nectarines, and pluots, and figs are here already! The weather and drought have made for many crops ripening early. Arata also has watermelon to enjoy at your July picnics.

707-320-8043 Serving the LGBT community and their allies sue@absolutelyfabuloustours.com www.absolutelyfabuloustours.com

• 21 : T UESDAY

BEN, Castro Group - Castro Community Room. Free for GGBA members. 11 am. (501 Castro St.) GGBA’s Business Exchange Network (BEN) is a category exclusive referral group designed to help members grow their referralbased business. www.ggba.org 38th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival - Tides Theatre. $18-$95. 7 pm. (533 Sutter St.) Innovation and transformation drives this year’s festival, featuring seven local and national playwrights presenting their ambitious, groundbreaking new works this Summer.

Through July 26 www.playwrightsfoundation.org Matilda the Musical -Orpheum Theatre. $45-$120. 8 pm. (1192 Market St.) The Tony Awardwinning Matilda the Musical is the story of an extraordinary girl who dreams of a better life. Through August 15. www.shnsf.com

• 22 : W EDNESDAY

Meditation Group - Hormel Center, SF Public Library. Free. 12 pm. (100 Larkin St.) Take a break to practice wakefulness and tranquility. www.sfpl.org Love and Information – American Conservatory Theater. $40-$100. 7:30 pm. (415 Geary St.) An acclaimed new play that features 57 brief yet memorable scenes that make up a world where data inspires obsession, and FaceTime conversations threaten to replace human contact. Through August 9. www.act-sf.org Up Your Alley Fair History SF LGBT Community Center. Free.

7 pm. (1800 Market St.) Discover the history of Folsom’s “Dirty Little Brother,” the alley on which it began, and its place in the transition of leather titles from porn, parties and beer to fundraising and community service. www.sfcenter.org BAY T IM ES JULY 9, 2015

25

NEWS (continued from page 8) Cisneros is running unopposed as treasurer of the City and County of San Francisco. He was first appointed to the position by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom in September 2004. He has since been reelected several times by wide margins. During his tenure, Cisneros has worked tirelessly to advance LGBTQ rights, fighting hard against Proposition 8 and serving on

ROSTOW (continued from page 13) the board of Equality California Institute and the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club. He steered the City successfully through the 2008 recession, has fought for the economic wellbeing of working families, and has used his experience in the tech and banking industries to enhance San Francisco’s taxpayer systems. eqca.

KRAMER (continued from page 22) that night. Meanwhile Razmik (Karren Karaguilian), a cab driver, seeks out both ladies for personal reasons. The film thrives on its characters’ manic energy, but it is ingratiating because Sin-dee and Alexandra have tremendous heart. Baker spoke via Skype about making Tangerine.

Gary M. Kramer: Sean, You tend to make films about marginalized, struggling, and/or disenfranchised characters. Why do these kinds of stories appeal to you?

Sean Baker: I try to stay away from being too self-analytical. In all four of my films, I dealt with subject matter I didn’t know about. I think that those were small cultures I was interested in exploring. Each project began a different way and lead to what it became.

With Tangerine, it was a street corner in LA that was infamous as a chaotic, red light district. I had just explored sex work in my previous film, Starlet. I think I’m doing a trilogy. It was pure curiosity that led me there. The collaboration of befriending and getting the trust of the people from that world is how the stories were developed.

Gary M. Kramer: What can you say about the portrayal of the transgender prostitute characters?

Sean Baker: Mya told us something early in the process that made us make a comedy. She was enthusiastic about the film, but asked me to promise to show what the transgender women of color who do sex work go through out here with brutal honesty, even if it’s un-PC. And she wanted it to be funny, and “made for the girls,” not like it was a National Geographic style film. She said that humor is how we get through this.

I said it was going to be a balancing act. These women are images that we have all seen before in cinema or TV, but for me, they were always carica-

tures, or used as the butt of jokes, never developed, or fleshed out. I think that people might say we don’t want to see this image again. I wanted to humanize these women and give them a story that while it might play out only in that world, the themes of friendship and infidelity are universal and viewers can identify with them.

Gary M. Kramer: How much of the film was improvised?

Sean Baker: For the girls’ dialogue, improvisation was encouraged. Chris [Bergoch, the co-writer] and I recorded every interview we did. We used the interviews as a guide for the dialogue. I gave the characters the script and told them, if you don’t like it, put it into your words, and that’s what they did.

They sometimes said the script, or came to the table with their own wording. The only time we couldn’t deviate from the script was during the Armenian dialogue, because I don’t know Armenian.

Gary M. Kramer: There’s a fantastic scene in a car wash, but you cut away in the middle of it, which both increases and interrupts the dramatic moment.

Can you discuss that strategy?

Sean Baker: The car wash was a scene I wanted to shoot—a long take in the car wash. I didn’t know what I would do and when Mya told me that women take their clients into the car wash for a quickie, that’s what led us to write that scene. What I did with the music and the cuts were abrupt and jarring. I edit my own films. It’s done organically, following my instincts. © 2015 Gary M. Kramer Gary M. Kramer is the author of “Independent Queer Cinema: Reviews and Interviews,” and the co-editor of “Directory of World Cinema: Argentina.” Follow him on Twitter @garymkramer

Wednesdays: what’s for dinner? $10 DINNER

SPECIAL MENU Michael & Wendy invite you to come for dinner at Sweet Inspiration $10 special price does not include drinks and dessert.

Sweet Inspiration Bakery Cafe

2239 Market Street, San Francisco 415/621-8664 sweetinspirationbakery.com 26

BAY TIMES JULY 9 , 2 0 1 5

Dry? Really? What’s dry about constitutional law?

It’s not dry, it’s thought provoking! For example, let’s say that it’s illegal to discriminate against gays in…oh, I’ll pick Oregon out of the hat. Is it also illegal to announce that you plan to discriminate against gays? The answer to that question is yes, because putting up an antigay sign or making it clear that gays aren’t welcome is not protected speech under the First Amendment.

It’s basically a violation of the underly-

ing anti discrimination law because it has the same discriminatory effect and hinders the gay person from having equal access to your store.

Recently, the Oregon Labor Commission levied a $135,000 fine on antigay bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein (following their refusal to serve lesbians in 2013) and also ordered the Kleins to stop insisting in the press that “Sweet Cakes by Melissa” will not make cakes for gay weddings. Now, the conservative press is afire with bombastic

headlines accusing the Commission of issuing a “gag order” and trampling on the K leins’ free speech rights. That’s just wrong, but this is par for the course from the right leaning media, which can be expected to flog everything and anything that advances the storyline of religious victimhood.

Stop whining and write that check, Melissa! arostow@aol.com

SISTER DANA (continued from page 22) culled from SFGMC - also performed.

Guest artist Breanna Sinclaire, who recently graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the first transwoman of color, gave us several gorgeous solos. A total of 25 glorious Elton hits were sung that night.

course throughout the Parade people had #MY NAME IS purple placards and stickers, and I wore the requisite purple protester shirt.

Sister Dana was quite proud to be a rainbow nun riding in the SF Bay Times amphibious duck mobile - flashing peace signs and blowing air kisses to the crowd, and receiving same back with equal love. It was a long parade, and my Tivo broadcast ran out of video at hour five! Who knows how much longer it went beyond that?!

The Saturday before the Pride Parade, Gary Virginia & Donna Sachet hosted the 17TH ANNUAL PRIDE BRUNCH as a festive fundraiser for POSITIVE RESOURCE CENTER, honoring the LGBT Pride Parade Grand Marshals at Hotel Whitcomb.

Given honor were Celebrity Grand Marshals Rick Welts, President and Chief Operating Officer of the 2015 NBA Champions, the Golden State Warriors. In 2011, Welts became the highest-ranking executive in men’s professional team sports to publicly acknowledge he is gay; Jim Obergefell; the named plaintiff in Obergefell v. Hodges, the case before the U.S. Supreme Court that brought marriage equality to all 50 states; and Anthony Wayne, starring in Mighty Real: A Fabulous Sylvester Musical celebrating the life of Sylvester as the first “Queen of Disco.” Community Grand Marshals honored were Judy Dlugacz, Olivia Co-founder; Alicia Garza, #BlackLivesMatter Co-founder; Brian Basinger, AIDS Housing Alliance/SF Co-founder; and Belo Cipriani, award-winning author and disabilities advocate and first ever blind grand marshal. Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal was Felicia Elizondo, Screaming Queen, pioneer, legend, icon, diva; Organizational Grand Marshal was Transgender Law Center; The Gilbert Baker Pride Founder’s Award went to Patrick Carney, Pink Triangle Organizer and Co-founder; The José Julio Sarria History Maker Award went to Julia and Sam Thoron, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), who got a rousing standing ovation; The inaugural Audrey Joseph Entertainment Award went to Audrey Joseph, SF Entertainment Commissioner, activist, record executive; The Teddy Witherington Award to Tita Aida, transgender activist, Asian/ Pacific Islander LGBTQ community leader; Heritage of Pride, 10 Years of Service Award to Tom Taylor and Jerome “Jerry” Goldstein, community advocates and fundraisers; Heritage of Pride, Pride Freedom Award to Mary Midgett, community leader, author; Heritage of Pride, Pride Creativity Award to Monica Helms, creator of the Transgender Pride Flag; Heritage of Pride, and Pride Community Award to Harry Lit, community organizer and fundraiser.

Gilbert Baker’s original 1979 rainbow flag was auctioned off for $2,400.

Donna closed singing her special marriage victory lyrics to “I Am What I Am” from La Cage aux Folles.

AT&T Audience Award for Best Short was Adrift In Sunset by Director Narissa Lee; Audience Award for Best Documentary was Game Face by Director Michiel Thomas; Audience Award for Best Feature was Margarita, With A Straw by Co-directors Shonali Bose & Nilesh Maniyar.

Frameline39 Volunteer of the Year, Jackie Dennis, selected the powerful Kenyan anthology, Stories Of Our Lives, to be the recipient of the special Volunteer of the Year Award grant underwritten by an anonymous donor and Frameline, carrying a $2,000 grant for the selected filmmaker.

Sooooo The Parade happened. THE 45TH ANNUAL SAN FRANCISCO LGBT PRIDE PARADE brought out about a million queers and their fans marching down Market. Sister Dana loves controversy, but I do wish the #MY NAME IS: SHAME ON FB protest marchers had been more out in number against Facebook’s absurdly discriminatory “real name” policy. Of

However, what we’ve all been waiting for (well, a few maybe) is the coveted (not) awards: THE SISTER DANA SEZ DON’T MISS THESE FRAMELINE FLICK PICKS (when they hit the theaters, DVDs, and streaming): TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL, which had special appearances at the Festival by old school Hollywood heartthrob-turned-gay Tab

VIP AFTER-PARTY IN THE ROTUNDA featured Extra Action Marching Band, Mighty Real: A Fabulous Sylvester Musical, “Beautility” performance by Monique Jenkinson (Fauxnique), Dark Garden Corsetry & Couture, VivvyAnne ForeverMORE, Jason Brock, and performances from San Francisco’s legendary Monster Show.

The North Light Discotheque offered Sergio Fedasz of Go BANG! and SyntheTigers.

The world’s largest and longest-running LGBTQ film festival, FRAMELINE39, THE SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL LGBTQ FILM FESTIVAL, closed Sunday, June 28, with Natalia Leite’s provocative and visually arresting drama BARE, starring Dianna Agron (Glee) and Paz de la Huerta (Boardwalk Empire). The Festival, with 117 screenings, drew together an audience of 62,000 as well as a cavalcade of filmmakers, actors, and industry guests from around the globe. The Festival spanned 11 days of sold-out screenings, lively parties, events, and special guests, culminating in the Frameline39 awards presentations at the Closing Night party at Oasis Nightclub & Cabaret.

Outstanding First Feature Award was presented to In the Grayscale, directed by Claudio Marcone; First Feature Jury awards gave an honorable mention to Stories of Our Lives, directed by Jim Chuchu; Jury Award for Outstanding Documentary was Alex & Ali directed by Malachi Leopold; Documentary Jury awards got an Honorable Mention to The Amina Profile directed by Sophie Deraspe.

Hunter and its filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz (2015 Frameline Award honoree); there we also got a special sneak peek preview of the hot, hot, HOT MAGIC MIKE XXL, which was preceded by an electrifying surprise performance by an athletic quintet of male dancers who left us audience members hot and bothered. But hey, can anybuddy tell me the meaning of “XXL”?

Is it Extra Extra Large? A soul-based periodical?? A gay dance club in Europe?? SEED MONEY:THE CHUCK HOLMES STORY, the brilliant biopic about the creator of gay male porn empire, Falcon Studios, and also a huge benefactor for queer charities (which is why the LGBT Community Center is named after Chuck Holmes); BEAUTIFUL SOMETHING, following four men in intertwining searches for gay sex, love, and identity in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love; GUIDANCE, the hilarious scrapes a drunk former child star (played and directed by a real former child star) can get into when pretending to be a high school guidance counselor who also becomes a serial burglar; and THOSE PEOPLE, a witty, modern interpretation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic Brideshead Revisited. All six truly deserve TSDSDMTFFPawards!

CUMMING UP! MAGNET, the Castro hub for health and wellbeing for gay and bi men, turns 12! Celebrate their 12 years of service on Thursday, July 9th, 8pm, 4122 18th Street for cake, champagne, and a special 12-year anniversary souvenir. Free.

Also, don’t miss MAGNET ART OPENING reception featuring the art of MIKE SHRIVER, July 10th, 8-10pm. magnetsf.org SF OASIS & EXHIBIT Q present BALONEY: PRIDE, San Francisco’s Gay All-Male Revue choreographed by Rory Davis, directed by Michael Phillis, starring Rory Davis, James Arthur M, Adam Roy, Shaun Mullen, Moe Arikat, Alex Steinhaus, Simon Palczynski, Tim Wingert, Michael Phillis & Aaron Sarazan, Thursday July 9th, Friday July 10th, Saturday July 11th, doors 7pm, show 8pm, Oasis, 298 11th Street at Folsom. sfoasis.com HARVEY MILK LGBT DEMOCRATIC CLUB is presenting their 39TH ANNUAL DINNER & GAYLA at New Asia Restaurant, 772 Pacific Avenue, Thursday, July 16th, 6-9pm. The keynote speaker is Jovanka Beckles, Councilmember, City of Richmond. milkclub.org The Cockettes photo book, TOO MUCH IS NEVER ENOUGH! needs Kickstarter donations to publish a limited edition, high quality comprehensive photo book of the seminal San Francisco theater troupe from 19691972. kickstarter.com/projects/784493607/ the-cockettes-photo-book-too-much-isnever-enough Sister Dana sez, “Happy belated Fourth of July! Well, we achieved independence from Britain in 1776 to become first class American citizens; so why can’t we queers in 2015 become more than second class American citizens?!”

Round About - Pride Season Events

Photos by RINK

Filmmaker Cheryl Dunye, Rochester Film Festival Filmmaker Narissa Lee accepted the AT&T Audiprogrammer Michael Gamilla and Frameline Vol- ence Award for Best Short Film from Frameline’s The scene at Oasis during the Frameline Festival Closing Night AIDS fundraising icon Rita Rockett, SF Chronicle columnist Leah Garchik unteer of the Year Jackie Dennis at the Festival’s Desiree Buford at the Closing Night Party.

Party on June 28 and author Mark Abramson at the Magnet Book Club launch party where Closing Night Party at Oasis Abramson introduced his new memoir Sex Drugs and Disco: San Francisco Diaries from the Pre-AIDS Era

Programmer Joshua Moore, executive director Lexi Leban and program direc- The Fiat Lux shop on Church Street welcomed tor Jay Rosenblatt welcomed guests to the Jewish Film Festival press confer- customers after the Dyke March on June 27. ence at the Dolby Studios on June 23.

The Planned Parenthood booth staff at the Trans March rally on June 26

Transgender activist and actress Laverne Cox spoke at the Trans March rally in Dolores Park on Friday, June 26.

Author Katie Gilmartin (right) with friends at the Trans March rally at Dolores Park

A guest at the Trans March rally The Trans Thrive booth at the Trans March rally on on June 26 carries the Trans flag. June 26

Fork in the Road hot dogs were served with a smile during the City Hall Rotunda VIP Party on June 28.

Cleve Jones, Bravo’s Ronnie Kroell, Dustin Lance Black and designer Bruce Beaudette at City Hall during the VIP Party in the Rotunda on June 28 A greeter at the Fairie Freedom Village in Civic Center during the Pride Celebration on June 28

Out Assemblyman Evan Low (right) with friends at City Hall for the VIP Party on June 28.

Pink Triangle project founder Patrick Carney at the Castro Walgreens display window on June 23 Artistic Director Pete Nowlen conducted the L/G Freedom Band at their July 4th Concert at Yerba Buena Gardens.

Musicians Erin Luther and Chris Mills performed at the L/G Freedom Band Concert on July 4th at Yerba Buena Gardens.

Good Vibrations’ Jack Davis (center) with friends at the Fairie Freedom Village in the SF Civic Center during the Pride Celebration on June 28 BAY T IM ES JULY 9, 2015

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