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

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.

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

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

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!

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.

Tropical Storm Agatha swept across Central America yesterday, bringing torrential rain that killed more than 100 people and opened a 60m-deep sinkhole in Guatemala City which reportedly swallowed up a three-storey building.

The 30m-diameter sinkhole opened up in a northern district of Guatemala City, with residents blaming the rains and substandard drainage systems. Local reports said one man was killed when the building was swallowed. In 2007, three people died when a similar sinkhole appeared in the same area.

Californians Against Hate was established in July 2008 to draw attention to the major donors to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign. These contributors gave $40 million to amend the California Constitution to take away the right of same-sex couples to marry.  If our opponents want to take away our rights, then we will fight back. We will let the world know who these donors are.