Bay Area Reporter Weblogs

Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, an LGBT-focused business advisory group based in San Francisco, has scored a major get for its annual summit this fall: John Berry, the openly gay director of the Office of Personnel Management.

Formerly the head of the National Zoo, Berry is the highest ranking person in President Barack Obama’s administration. He has been the White House’s most public gay surrogate of late as it battles against a sea of criticism from the LGBT community that the president has not been forceful enough in pushing LGBT rights.

At a Pride rally in Washington D.C. earlier this month, he reiterated the administration’s support for passage of hate crimes legislation, a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the repeal of military’s anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents married same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits.

Berry will oversee implementation of the memorandum Obama signed last week extending some benefits to the spouses of LGBT federal employees. And he has vowed to continue to advocate for the extension of heath care and retirement benefits, something the White House claims it can not do due to the anti-gay federal Defense of Marriage Act.

“Everyone should take part in this opportunity to hear directly from someone who is helping shape LGBT history,” Out and Equal Executive Director Selisse Berry wrote in an e-mail released Wednesday, June 24 announcing the news. “He is actively working to secure equal rights not only for federal employees, but for all of us by inspiring change and being a catalyst for equality.”

The 2009 Out and Equal Workplace Summit, a conference on LGBT workplace equality, will take place October 6-9 at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort outside Orlando, Florida. Berry will deliver his keynote address during the summit’s Friday afternoon plenary.

For more information about the conference, visit http://www.outandequal.org/summit-2009.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today picked Ronald E. Albers for a judgeship on the San Francisco County Superior Court.

It is believed to be the first time the Republican governor has selected an openly gay person for a judge seat.

Albers, 60, of San Francisco, has served as a commissioner for the Superior Court since 2002. He will earn $178,789.

The Bay Area Reporter will have more on Albers’s selection in next week’s issue Thursday, June 18.

Theresa Sparks, the transgender woman who has served two terms as president of the city’s police commission, has ruled out running for a third term.

When she first won the coveted seat by one vote back in 2007, Sparks became the first transgender person to head a city oversight panel. But her ascension led to the resignation of outgoing president Louise Renne, a former city attorney and supervisor.

It also caused political fallout for Commissioner Joe Veronese, who bucked Mayor Gavin Newsom, the person who appointed him, by casting the deciding vote for Sparks. He in turn was not re-appointed by the mayor and saw his bid last year for a state Senate seat fail.

In an e-mail to the Bay Area Reporter, Sparks said when she sought the presidency for a second term last year she committed then that it would be her last time to lead the panel, which oversees the San Francisco Police Department.

The commission, she wrote in response to questions, “needs fresh leadership. Ideas become stale, much like visiting relatives and fish.”

With the commission and mayor poised to hire a new police chief to replace Heather Fong, who is set to retire this summer, Sparks said the timing was right for new leadership of the police panel. Plus, Sparks is unemployed and has applied for several positions out-of-state.

While she plans to remain a member of the commission, her term does not end until 2011, Sparks said she feels she has accomplished the goals she set for her presidency.

“I have completed my original objectives, articulated a vision and set a fresh, new tone for the commission,” she wrote.

The commission will elect its new president in June, and it is expected that Joe Marshall, who lost to Sparks back in 2007, will be elected to the seat.

The California Supreme Court will issue its decision on the validity of Proposition 8 Tuesday, May 26 at 10 a.m.

The court posted a notice on its Web site Friday stating that the decision in the same-sex marriage cases would be issued Tuesday.

The long-awaited decision has gay rights advocates anxiously anticipating the ruling, and to determine future action should the court uphold Prop 8, which eliminated the right for same-sex couples to marry. After the court’s landmark ruling last May 15 striking down Prop 22, same-sex marriages took place throughout the state until November 4, when voters approved Prop 8. An estimated 18,000 same-sex couples tied the knot in the five months such marriages were legal.

Following oral arguments March 5, court observers widely expect the justices will rule Tuesday that those marriages will remain valid; most of the speculation has been on whether the justices will uphold Prop 8.

As the Bay Area Reporter reported earlier this month, two statewide groups are gearing up for a return to the ballot box in an effort to repeal Prop 8 should the court uphold it. Those groups, Equality California and the Courage Campaign, are also part of a larger coalition that is conducting a statewide poll to gauge peoples’ attitudes on same-sex marriage.

Locally, there are events Monday night and Tuesday morning. On Monday night, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., a prayer service will be held at Grace Cathedral, 1100 California Street in San Francisco. The evening of songs and meditation will center on peace, healing, and understanding. Families are encouraged to attend.

Tuesday morning, from 8:30 to 9:15 a.m., a service and blessing will be held at St. Francis Lutheran Church, 152 Church Street (across from Safeway). Equality California’s Andrea Shorter said that the Bay Area community is invited to attend the service, which will feature music, words from community leaders, testimonies from married couples, and blessings for those who will be participating in protests or rallies. People will then march in a procession from the church to Civic Center Plaza, which is across the street from the Supreme Court building.

There are also actions planned for Tuesday night. For details, go to http://www.dayofdecision.com.

In Fresno, LGBTs and allies will hold a rally on Saturday, May 30. Dubbed “Meet in the Middle 4 Equality,” the event takes place at 1 p.m. in front of Fresno City Hall, 2600 Fresno Street. Other activities are also planned over the weekend and more information is available at http://www.meetinthemiddle4equality.com.

The B.A.R. will have full coverage of the court ruling online at http://www.ebar.com and in next week’s issue.

U.S. Army Lieutenant Dan Choi, who is being discharged under the military’s anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, will be a celebrity grand marshal in the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade Sunday, June 28.

Brendan Behan, deputy executive director of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, confirmed to the Bay Area Reporter that Choi will be riding in the parade. Behan said that Choi will be part of the Knights Out contingent. The group of West Point alumni recently came out as gay. Choi came out on national television in March, knowing the move could result in discharge proceedings being lodged against him.

Choi is one of two known gay service members who are being discharged since President Obama took office. The other, Army officer Sandy Tsao, recently wrote to the president, asking him to keep his campaign promise to repeal the military ban. Tsao did receive a handwritten note from the president, which indicated he intended to fulfill his promise to end DADT, but she was set to be discharged this week.

DADT prohibits lesbian and gay service members from serving openly in the armed forces.

Just a few days shy of what would have been Harvey Milk’s 79th birthday, the state Senate on Thursday, May 14 passed legislation that creates Harvey Milk Day in California in honor of the state’s first openly gay elected official.

SB 572, authored by state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), cleared the Senate with a 24-14 bipartisan vote. The bill designates May 22, Milk’s birthday, as a day of special significance in California. It would not be a paid holiday.

“Harvey Milk is an inspiration to Californians who believe in fairness and equality,” Leno said in a statement. “He fought for many of the issues we value today, including access to education, public transportation, affordable housing, and the environment. Harvey Milk gave his life for what he believed in.”

Milk, who represented the Castro while on the board, was assassinated along with then-Mayor George Moscone by ex-Supervisor Dan White in November 1978. The City Hall killings shocked the city. Next week, May 21, is the 30th anniversary of the White Night riots, when people angrily took to the streets after a jury convicted White of manslaughter instead of murder.

SB 572 is sponsored by Equality California and co-authored by 22 members of the Legislature, including out lawmakers Senator Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego), and Assemblymen Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) and John Perez (D-Los Angeles).

The bill now goes to the Assembly, where it will be heard in committee.

Equality California on Wednesday extended an invitation to Miss California Carrie Prejean to meet with leaders from her home state, as well as representatives from LGBT organizations, gay youth, and a family headed by a same-sex couple.

The move came, EQCA Executive Director Geoff Kors said, in response to Prejean’s opposition to same-sex marriage, which she discussed during the Miss USA pageant that aired Sunday. Prejean has stated in numerous post-pageant interviews that she believes her response to the question posed by gay blogger Perez Hilton cost her the Miss USA crown; she was named first runner-up.

“Miss California probably doesn’t realize how hurtful her statements are, especially to LGBT youth,” Kors said in a statement. “But this is about something much bigger than the issue of marriage alone, and I have to believe that if she meets us, she will come to see our humanity, and at the very least, I hope she will understand that what she says as Miss California can either hurt people or being them together.”

During the pageant, Hilton asked Prejean about her position on same-sex marriage.

“You know what, in my country, and in my family, I think that I believe a marriage should be between a man and a woman – no offense to anybody out there,” she said.

An e-mail sent to the Miss California USA organization, which participates in the Miss USA pageant, was not immediately returned.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) told the Bay Area Reporter Wednesday, April 15 that repealing the federal Defense of Marriage Act is not a top priority of hers right now.

The speaker said that her two legislative priorities for the LGBT community are passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the federal hate crimes bill; the latter was introduced in Congress earlier this month. She indicated action on those items would occur before any effort to repeal DOMA, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex relationships and allows states that do not provide equal rights to gay couples the ability to ignore such marriages granted in other states.

Pelosi made the comments while touring Project Open Hand, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that provides meals and groceries to people living with AIDS and other critical illnesses.

The B.A.R. will have a full report on Pelosi’s comments in the April 23 issue.

A report detailing what Equality California did to support the No on Prop 8 campaign and provide advice for future efforts that’s been in the works since at least January still has not been released.

[Updated: The report was released April 14. See the paper's coverage http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=3858]

Geoff Kors, EQCA’s executive director and a member of the No on 8 executive committee, told the Bay Area Reporter in a March 30 e-mail that the report “was expected to be received tomorrow and released in its entirely sometime soon.”

Vaishalee Raja, EQCA’s communications director, responded to questions about the report in an e-mail April 9.

“We’re just waiting for the final, final version of the report,” Raja wrote. Staff have reviewed previous drafts and provided edits as basic as language, grammar, and punctuation, and they’ve added substantive material because the firm’s information was incomplete for certain parts of the report, she said.

EQCA board president Cary Davidson has reviewed the report, Raja wrote.

“The delay is simply due to Geoff’s intense schedule and all the traveling he’s been doing, and the report is around 35 pages so there’s a lot of material to comb through,” she wrote. “Plus going back and forth with the firm on edits is taking some time.”

Raja said in her e-mail that the B.A.R. will hopefully get a copy of the report by Tuesday, April 14, the day after EQCA is set to lead a marriage equality town hall in San Francisco, “which means we’ll probably be working over the weekend again to get everything into shape.”

She did not immediately respond to a message asking how much EQCA is paying Woodward and McDowell, the Burlingame-based ballot measure and issue advocacy firm, to conduct the assessment. Raja later said EQCA is paying $7,500 for the report.

Ted Green, a project director at the firm, said the report contains three sections: an inventory of what EQCA did to try to help defeat Prop 8; an analysis of what’s happened since November, when the measure to ban same-sex marriage passed with 52 percent of the vote; and “lessons learned and recommendations going forward.”

Green is gay and volunteered with No on 8, though he noted that the firm was not involved in the campaign. He said the substantive material Raja referred to pertains to the inventory portion of what EQCA did.

The recommendations are based on the firm’s 30 years of experience running political campaigns in California, said Green.

“We took an objective look at what Equality California did,” Green said when asked if his volunteer role with the campaign could taint the evaluation. “We came at it from the view of people who wanted to see Prop 8 defeated” and see marriage equality in California.

Green said he couldn’t say how much EQCA is paying for the assessment.

There’s no word yet on when the larger assessment of the No on 8 campaign will be available. That evaluation is being conducted by UCLA.

The Vermont House voted 100-49 Tuesday, April 7 to override a veto of the equal marriage rights bill, following the Senate’s 23-5 override vote
Tuesday morning. The overrides make Vermont the fourth state where same-sex couples will be able to obtain marriage licenses the same as
straight couples – following Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa.

Filed by Lisa Keen, Keen News Service