Skeptical at first, when I saw so many people who lauded this as a wonderful, sightful ad on marriage equality, but it really DOES say it all, because it brings in all of life's emotions and doesn't sugar-coat same-sex relationships. The young man is stunning, but not in a drop-dead gorgeous way. He's funny and sensitive and, most of all ...
The last three months have been comprised of a series of battles, some won, some lost, some still being fought. The horrendous housing situation has quieted, leaving me free to write again, but forcing me to schedule my life accordingly. Time schedules and body schedules are tough to maintain when you're an older blogger like me.
My last endeavor was putting a video together as a tribute to my ex-partner Mike Ward. I was his caregiver for a number of years and although he passed away from liver cancer last July, we hadn't been able to create a memorial until last Wednesday.
And it was awesome!
Mostly Mike's friends from the SF cabaret scene. People who knew him for a relatively brief period of his life. So the video was a revelation in many ways. The main theme was Mike's legacy: that - like a song from The Little Princess - Every Goodbye Is Hello.
"If God doesn't destroy San Francisco, he should apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah" "OK, so it won't burn down in the traditional sense, but where is that earthquake when you need it???"
"It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world"
The first two quotes were from religion-based blogs. The third was from that classic reprobate, Oscar Wilde.
"Your city is remarkable not only for its beauty. It is also, of all the cities in the United States, the one whose name, the world over, conjures up the most visions and more than any other, incites one to dream. " - Georges Pompidou
Understatement has its purpose I suppose, but when it comes to certain topics, understatement always eludes me. So when I saw the musical Tales Of The City at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater, I knew that understatement would be impossible: after all, I actually LIVED through all of it. I even topped Michael Mouse in some respects.[1]
It's not a great musical by Broadway standards, but what makes it superlative to San Franciscans is that it is as true as it is heartfelt: it tears down barriers and replaces them with freedom, love and understanding. It's San Francisco at its best.
Of course, it will be reviled, boycotted, demonized, and deemed absolutely criminal by all the Bryan Fischers, James Dobsons, Beverly LaHayes, Lou Engles, Herman Cains and Tony Perkinses of the country. And since the musical's premier is in San Francisco during Gay Pride month and before San Francisco's million-in-attendance Gay Pride celebration, those people will be working feverishly to revile, boycott, demonize and deem absolutely criminal the city of San Francisco itself.
Thankfully, every year the City has managed to rise above all the vitriol and deliver an astoundingly loud "FU!" to those who don't admire it for what it is: the country's most accepting and compassionate city. It rises above the vilification, above the overt attempts to "save" it. It rises above the hysterical preachers (Lou Engle has called gays in the Castro "Those people who embrace the darkness"). This year, however, might prove more difficult to be celebratory than in the past: the Christian Right is ramping up the vitriol with impunity. It realizes that an attack on San Francisco is a powerful punch against the current Obama administration, the MSM, Hollywood, and every single liberal on the planet. It will try desperately to counteract the reactions to the Gallup poll that discovered over 50% of Americans are in favor of same-sex marriage. It will revel in photos of the Pride parade showing "perverts" and it will ferventlyhope that last year's violence at the Pink Party will be repeated - in fact, escalate into chaos and even more bloodshed. [2]
Yes, that last statement was meant to alarm: the Christian Right is becoming more violent in its hate speech, comparing gays and lesbians to N*zis, linking them to pedophilia, incest and bestiality. Granted, they use archaic stereotypes and dismissed "research," but they are mobilizing the fringe as never before with videos, ads in newspapers, politicians and a string of radio hosts who use those same politicians brazenly to promote a neo-Reconstructionist agenda. And the fringe is reacting: hate crimesagainst the LGBT community are up. Violence is just around the corner: it just needs a verbal spark to set off one individual, one group.
"San Francisco has been wicked from the very beginning"
I stumbled upon an ironic video while googling "San Francisco Sodom and Gomorrah". It supposedly focuses on the firebombing of a church when anti-gay preacher Lou Sheldon was supposed to speak. Edited by an evangelical Christian, it sets out to tell people how absolutely horrible and sinful San Francisco and its gay community are. In the process, however, if you count the lies and distortions you come up with, you realize that the primary purpose was to make people totally fearful of homosexuals.[3] It reeks of "This could happen to you!" In addition, it features Scott "Pink Swastika" Lively, one of the architects of the "kill the gays bill" in Uganda. In their momentum focusing on gay political power, they forget the oppression gays had seen well into the 80s.
Perhaps this White Night Riots incident can put things into perspective:
The second stage of the violence was a police raid/riot hours later in the predominantly gay Castro neighborhood, which vandalized the Elephant Walk bar and injured many of its occupants.[34] After order was restored at City Hall, SFPD cars carrying dozens of officers headed into the Castro District.[35] Officers entered a gay bar called the Elephant Walk, despite their orders not to do so. They shouted "dirty cocksuckers" and "sick faggots", shattered the large plate glass windows of the bar, and attacked patrons. After fifteen minutes police withdrew from the bar and joined other officers who were indiscriminately attacking gays on the street. The incident lasted nearly two hours.[4]
I was there, at both City Hall, then later in the Castro. You haven't lived until you've seen 50 riot-helmeted cops marching toward you, shields touching each other to form a wall of plexi-glass armor ready to throw tear gas. It was sooo much fun!
"But the Christian Right didn't cause the riot!" Perhaps because, at the time, the big CR was not as powerful as it is today. Its rhetoric not only kills indiscriminately, it owns politicians: just look at some of the proposed draconian laws in Texas.
Besides linking the LGBT community to pedophilia, incest, Nazism, witchcraft and bestiality, it has now focused on the idea of "recruitment," especially in schools. It's really a non-issue, but Tony Perkins of the disingenuous Family Research Council has sounded the alarm of "recruitment" in schools if anti-bullying education is enacted.
Mr. Perkins will doubtless take umbrage with this passage from Tales of The City:
[In a letter written to his mother, Michael (Mouse) Tolliver telling her that he is homosexual].
No, Mama, I wasn't "recruited." No seasoned homosexual ever served as my mentor. But you know what? I wish someone had. I wish someone older than me and wiser than the people in Orlando had taken me aside and said, "You're all right, kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone else. You're not crazy or sick or evil. You can succeed and be happy and find peace with friends - all kinds of friends - who don't give a damn who you go to bed with. Most of all, though, you can love and be loved, without hating yourself for it."[5]
So will the beautiful, wicked City-by-the-Bay be able to prevent possible extreme attacks? No. Nothing can prevent hate crimes perpetrated by zealots spurred on by the Religious Right. Zealots have, in fact, become the new home-grown terrorists, oblivious to the parallels their preachers have to radical Islam's imams. And will it survive the amped-up volume of rotten rhetoric? Yes. The performance of a show like Tales of the City is certainly a testament to that: San Francisco will survive because basic humanity, love and compassion will always survive, despite the efforts of some to make the very soul of The City extinct.
Alright, this piece may go down as just another rant, so as to end it with a more PC tone I will force myself to understatement: the attackers (he says with teeth gritted) against the glorious City of San Francisco are ... not … very…nice … people.
1Before the "Jockey Shorts Dance Contest" started, I was a go-go dancer in the infamous End Up's cage. I lasted more than three months. I was popular … as well as hungry. 2 I always seem to be close to crimes in The City: I was very near the Pink Saturday homicide (and I was in a Castro bar during the White Night Riots), so I was able to ask police about it: it was gang-related and had nothing to do with the gay community or the Pink Saturday Party. The Christian Right, however, omits this fact, hoping that their profile of gays as violent will be proved correct. 3FYI: Harry Hay did not intend to replace Judeo-Christian principles with his own ideologies. Furthermore, gay politics has never been as powerful as the video might leave you to believe. Gays have always been creative in their vociferousness, leading most to believe that they have enormous amounts of power. 4 Police also shouted "sieg heil!" and "bonzai!" When they herded us all onto the intersection of 18th and Castro they were astounded at the number of patrons in the bars - approx. 1500. When we started to shout "Go Home! Go Home!" the 50 policemen reasoned that the crowd was unsustainable and ... went home. One bartender at the Elephant Walk couldn't go home: after having scalding hot water poured over him, he was clubbed viciously enough to lay in a coma for over six months. 5 Interestingly enough, this is the same letter Maupin published in the San Francisco Chronicle, telling his own mother that he was homosexual.
Today is the day after Valentine's Day, but I wanted to relate the wonderful words of Bishop Christopher Senyonjo in his letter to Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. If you read our last post, you'll know that Bishop Senyonjo is now considered a "marked man" in Uganda for being a staunch ally and friend to Uganda's gay community. His letter of compassion and concern is probably the best Valentine I've read in years.
LETTER FROM BISHOP CHRISTOPHER SENYONJO TO ARCHBISHOP ROWAN WILLIAMS
The following is the full text of the letter from Bishop Senyonjo to Archbishop Rowan Williams and the Anglican Communion.
Dear Archbishop Rowan Williams, Primates and fellow bishops, clergy and people of our diverse Anglican Communion.
Peace from God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I give thanks on behalf of the family and friends of David Kato for your love and prayers at this difficult time. All over the world, human beings are longing for liberation, love, respect and the dignity to have meaningful lives. This week alone, we witnessed it in Egypt .We also see this longing in the struggle for human rights for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people (LGBT) through the sacrificial life and death of David Kato. As human beings, we must respect our differences and be united in our call for listening and sharing with each other. To understand God, we are all called to understand the mystery of each other, including our sexualities. God has given us this gift and to defame, condemn, imprison and kill human beings because of their God-given nature, is a great human error. The church has a tragic history of condemning Jews, Moslems, scientists and LGBT people. Our teaching and theology has a causal effect and if we do not learn from our own historical mistakes, we will repeat the same sinful destruction of lives, families and communities.
When European churches failed to protect minority communities during World War II, people were sent to the gas chambers and concentration camps. Many religious people in Europe emerged from that experience to help create the Declaration of Human Rights. We now have sixty years of building an internationally recognised framework for the protection of human rights in every country. If Anglicans in one country dehumanize, persecute and imprison minorities, we must be true to the Gospel and challenge such assaults on basic human rights. They key to our ministry must be to educate our people and encourage LGBT people to tell their stories and the impact of homophobia in their lives. Listening to the stories of LGBT people was the beginning of my own transformation. This work of understanding the phenomenon of human sexuality should be taken seriously in our theological seminaries and schools. The clergy should be well equipped to serve and not to ignorantly repel the people of God. A required course in Human Sexuality should be required of all seminarians and clergy.
Many African countries imprison LGBT people because of who they are. As a bishop in the midst of those countries, I am now a shepherd caring for the lost sheep that are persecuted by the Church and threatened by a pending anti-homosexual draconian bill in Uganda. I preach the new covenant of Jesus Christ sealed in love as we read in John 15:12. This is the heart of the Gospel-the Good News. This sacrifice of Love is mocked when sister churches tolerate or promote the violation of basic human rights. Life and liberty are at risk and we must hold each other accountable. A loving Anglican Communion should not keep quiet when the Rolling Stone tabloid in Uganda openly supports the “hanging of the homos,” including a fellow bishop who pleads for their inclusion and non-discrimination! Silence has the power to kill. We have witnessed its destruction this past week in the tragic and cruel murder of David Kato.
We African Anglicans have a rich and powerful history of speaking out on human rights in the most difficult of situations. Bishop Colenso worked with Zulus to establish an indigenous church while being fought by his fellow English bishops. Bishops Trevor Huddleston, John Taylor and Desmond Tutu resisted Apartheid. We must not demean our great tradition by oppressing LGBT minorities under any circumstances, even to maintain Anglican unanimity. The criminalization of homosexuality remains the greatest state and church sanctioned violence perpetrated against LGBT people and their allies in many countries. We must agree to demolish all forms of institutional homophobia beginning with the removal of all laws that punish human beings for being gay or living in loving relationships. This will be the first step in providing basic human rights to a largely invisible international community who live in daily fear of their lives.
So in thanksgiving for the unity and commitment we have together, let us continue to listen to one another, to protect the vulnerable and marginalized within our own societies and to bring our collective wisdom to the work of repairing the world and correcting the great injustices in our local communities.
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Mark Twain
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