Queer Oakland

Opponents of same-sex marriage like to talk about how letting gay folks get hitched would destroy the institution of marriage. I’d like to them to tell me which is more appalling: letting two guys say their vows or, as the article below details, completely destroying a life that two people have built together.

Luckily Harold Skull and Clay Green’s case turned out alright, but who knows how many other couples have been separated and lost everything they have built because they weren’t allowed to get married?

On April 18, 2010, we posted an article about the county of Sonoma separating an elderly gay couple, Harold Skull and Clay Greene.  To quickly recap, Harold, 88, fell on the porch of their home of 20 years, and required hospitalization.  While there, Harold made accusations of abuse at the hands of his partner, and despite Mr. Skull’s apparent dementia, the County of Sonoma declared him a ward of the county, appointed a conservator, and put him i … Read More

via Queer Visalia

I saw this bulletin posted at a bus stop as I was headed home from school today. Basically it seems that due to the economic downturn negotiations between AC Transit and their employees have bogged down. The employees want to bring in a third party arbitrator to resolve the dispute whereas AC Transit is forging ahead and just impose what they want on their drivers and mechanics. So the employees are left with two options, fight it out in court or go on strike. Or both, if they get really pissed off.

What this means for the rest of us is poorer transit options, higher fares and more headaches. Republicans like to crow about how raising taxes, or even the mere existence of taxes, in a recession would lead to terrible things. Yet the flipside of that is that it is quite often the poor and disadvantaged who are hurt most by bad economic times and things.  Recessions necessarily lead to less revenue for the state as people lose their jobs and pay less in taxes while taking more in government services.

Services, like for example public transit, that often get cut or reduced making things more difficult for people who are already on hard times.

Right now it’s looking like things will go towards arbitration, as a judge ruled today but while it gets resolved – which could take quite a while – AC Transit will continue operating under the new provisions it decided to impose after negotiations fell apart. So buses will continue running for now.

Heard about this Day of Decision stuff and not have any idea what’s going on? Been hiding under a rock for the past two years and miss the hubbub about Proposition 8? Well fear not for this guy has got you covered.

Here’s a pretty good story I came across last week that I thought deserved reposting given all the crap that’s happened in SF over the past few weeks:

After yesterday’s post regarding the depressing and tragic events surrounding Pride in San Francisco last weekend, I thought I’d share something a little more uplifting from Pride in Chicago: I spent the day at Chicago’s Pride Parade. Some friends and I, with The Marin Foundation, wore shirts with “I’m Sorry” written on it. We had signs that said, “I’m sorry that Christians judge you,” “I’m sorry the way churches have treated you,” “I used to be … Read More

via Can’t Win For Losing

I’m still recovering from Pride in SF over the weekend, three days of partying, drinking and walking across half of San Francisco left my brain confused as to why the room wasn’t spinning and my stomach not knowing how to handle solid food now that there wasn’t any alcohol to soak up. So I’ll share a fresh view of Pride from our friend A.J. down in Visalia who got to experience his first ever Pride this year:

Yesterday will forever count as one of the most intense days of my life.  I have never seen so many gay people together having a good time at once!  There were booths, drinks, and half (sometimes wholly) naked people as far as the eye could see.  It was the first time i could really feel comfortable with PDA so naturally i was taking full advantage of that.  I had never danced in public before either, which i also totally did all kinds.  Mike and … Read More

via Queer Visalia

A small-ish crowd gathered outside the Mayor’s balcony at San Francisco’s Civic Center this evening to commemorate the ceremonial raising of the Pride Flag. No speeches or fanfare accompanied the event but it does mark the beginning of the march up to San Francisco’s massive Pride Festival this weekend.

Coming from a town that does its best it ignore the fact that gay people live within its confines, let alone actually celebrate their existence, it’s nice to see a city partaking in and celebrating the diversity that makes it such a vibrant and thriving place to live.

So make sure and show your support at San Francisco’s Pride festivities this weekend and go see a film or two at Frameline this week too.

Happy Pride Everyone!

Today is Primary Day in California. A lot of attention has been paid to the former Tech CEO’s gunning for the Republican nomination for the big seats and to Gavin Newsom’s off-again on-again campaign but somewhere in there the fact that the Birther Queen, Miss Orly Taitz, is running for Secretary of State got lost. Not only that she might just pull it off:

A possible Taitz victory would work like this.

Republican voters, brought out in sizable numbers by the contested primaries for governor and U.S. senator, fill out the rest of their ballot with progressively less information about their candidates. They know Taitz’s name from… somewhere. And she’s listed first on the ballot, thanks to the state’s randomized ranking system. (Some of these voters, of course, will know and avidly support her.) She’s identified on the ballot as an attorney, while Dunn is a real estate agent. They check off her name, and she wins.

Dunn can pull this off, despite running a fairly low-key campaign. For all we know, he could win by 30 points — nobody polls these races. But it’s not unheard of for a low-visibility office like this to go to the candidate with a little name recognition and the first place on the ballot. Cue: Potential PR disaster and a talking point Democrats could use until the end of time.