Target faces gay backlash
Out gay clown
BARtab
Retailer’s San Francisco plans get chilly reception following anti-gay donation.
Billy Murray comes to the Bay Area with Ringling Bros. circus.
Get Outta Town! August travel issue.
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see Arts
see inside
BAYAREAREPORTER
Vol. 40
. No. 31 . 5 August 2010
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Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Prop 8 loss points to parents P
men and lesbians … Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfillroposition 8 is uning its constitutional constitutional – but obligation.” don’t start ringing The ruling is a first the wedding bells yet. step to nullifying Prop 8, In a sweeping 136-page the two-year-old ban on decision, U.S. District same-sex marriage. But Court Chief Judge Vaughn numerous obstacles reWalker ruled Wednesday main. that California’s ban on Moments after the same-sex marriage violates ruling, young fiancees the United States ConstituVanessa Judicpa and tion. The successful federal Maria Ydil walked to challenge was brought by San Francisco City Hall, attorneys Theodore Olson accompanied by a large and David Boies, in a case crowd, and attempted known as Perry v. to obtain a marriage liSchwarzenegger. cense. They were welCourt watchers at the comed by City AdminFederal Building scramistrator Edwin Lee, Subled to download the decipervisor Bevan Dufty, sion as it was released Maria Ydil and Vanessa Judicpa are followed by well-wishers as they march to City Hall to get a and Supervisor David Wednesday afternoon marriage license upon learning that Proposition 8 had been ruled unconstitutional by a federal Campos, but informed shortly before 2 p.m., read- judge in San Francisco Wednesday. However, a stay of the decision prevented them from marrying. that the city is currently ing the text aloud from unable to issue licenses. their mobile devices to an “Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational Shortly after Walker issued his decision, a noelated crowd. basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for de- tice went out stating that the decision will not go Walker was not swayed by the defendants dur- nial of a marriage license,” Walker wrote. “Califor- into effect until the judge rules on a motion for a ing the trial that took place in January and June. nia has no interest in discriminating against gay
by Matt Baume
by Seth Hemmelgarn he key factor behind the Proposition 8 loss involved parents with children under 18 living at home who were swayed by Yes on 8’s ads shortly before the November 2008 election, David Fleischer according to a report released Tuesday, August 3. The report’s release came one day before U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker was to issue his decision on whether Prop 8 violates the U.S. Constitution. Dave Fleischer, the out gay consultant
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Lydia Gonzales
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Gay man takes helm of SF national park DCCC pushes H for vote on ENDA y a unanimous vote at its July 28 meeting, the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee passed a resolution urging the congressional passage of the Employment Non-Discrimina- Nancy Pelosi tion Act. The DCCC’s resolution states, in part, “The San Francisco Democratic Party urges the California Democratic Party, the City and County of San Francisco, and state legislators to request that the congressional leadership pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the current session of Congress.” Some version of a bill that would prohibit employment discrimination has languished in Congress for over a decade, but activists have been pushing particularly hard for passage of the current, inclusive version in recent months. The bill now before the House and Senate includes sexual orientation and gender identity. ENDA protesters shut down traffic on the eve of the Netroots Nation conference
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Steven Underhill
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Craig Kenkel sits on the deck of the square-rigged Balclutha at the Hyde Street Pier.
$144,990 a year as superintendent. He is also responsible for the park’s maritime library, which is housed at Fort Mason, as well as a historic documents collection numbering 7 million items stored in warehouses around the bay. It is a task for which Kenkel is well equipped, even if he has never captained a sailing ship. He began working for the national parks in 1983 while an architectural student at Iowa State University. Upon graduation he went to work for the national parks’ Denver service center as a fulltime historical architect. “I totally fell into the park service by chance. We were a huge rural farm family; we didn’t really vacation or go to national parks,” recalled Kenkel, 50, the second oldest of 10 brothers and sisters, one of whom is his twin sister. “I just found that summer job in 1983. It was my first exposure to the national parks.” He had envisioned a life designing signature buildings for urban cityscapes. Instead he found himself traipsing through wilderness determined to save aging marine structures or gold mining
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outposts. “It stirred a passion in me, I guess,” said Kenkel, whose parents are now in their 70s and still live on the family’s corn and hog farm, which is worked by two of his brothers. “I thought, ‘Wow. We get paid to work in national parks. How amazing is this?’” In 1988, Kenkel transferred to the park service’s Western Regional Office in San Francisco, and served first as a project architect and then as Regional Historical Architect for the national parks of Hawaii, California, Nevada, Arizona and the U.S. territories of the Pacific. While there he worked on the restoration of the Point Reyes Light Station, a landmark feature of the Point Reyes National Seashore. He also had a hand in repairing the Russian Bishop’s House at Sitka National Historical Park in Alaska.
A return to SF Then in 1992 he returned to the Midwest where he continued to work as a historical ar-
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by Matt Baume
aving grown up in a large Iowa farming family, Craig Kenkel lived about as far from the ocean as one could be. He is the very definition of what seamen would call a landlubber. “No, I can’t sing a sea shanty. You don’t want me to,” joked Kenkel when asked if he knows any shipboard working songs. Despite his upbringing, the question is an appropriate one for someone who now finds himself in charge of a floating flotilla of historic oceangoing vessels. In May, Kenkel became the superintendent of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. The shoreline park lies at the western end of the city’s Fisherman’s Wharf area. It includes Hyde Street Pier, home to five historic ships, and Aquatic Park, with its sandy beach and municipal pier. Three months into the job and the openly gay Kenkel is still finding his seafaring legs and boning up on his sailing jargon. Yet, in many respects, he is the perfect person for the job. He has dedicated his life’s work to maintaining the National Park Service’s treasures. At the maritime park he will find boats in need of repair, a crumbling pier, and a recently renovated boathouse that will be home to a revamped museum exhibition about San Francisco’s nautical past. “My career working in historic preservation is a good fit,” said Kenkel in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter while seated on the deck of the square-rigged Balclutha, built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1886. “This park is fundamentally a collection of artifacts that vary in size from a small lapel pin to a floating ferry boat. The park collection, as a museum, is pretty unique.” Initially, the Hyde Street Pier was a state historical park and Aquatic Park was a city property. They were then designated a part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area upon its creation in 1972; Congress in 1988 then created the separate maritime park to better coordinate the upkeep of its five vessels, which are national historic landmarks similar to the White House or the Statue of Liberty. Kenkel oversees the park’s $11 million yearly budget and manages 80 employees. He earns
Lydia Gonzales
by Matthew S. Bajko