San Francisco Bay Times July 10, 2014

/SanFranciscoBayTimes

MICHIGAN WOMYN’S MUSIC FESTIVAL 2013, OPENING CELEBRATION, NIGHT STAGE - PHOTO BY DESDEMONA BURGIN

July 10-23, 2014 | www.sfbaytimes.com /SFBayTimes

See Pages 20-21

Project Open Hand Expands Services, Launches Food = Medicine Pilot Study For nearly 30 years, Project Open Hand has been here for our community.

In the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic, founder Ruth Brinker prepared healthy dinners for seven men who were dying of AIDS. On the day of the Loma Prieta earthquake, Project Open Hand began ser v ing clients in A lameda County.

In 1998, when the Sa lvat ion A r my lost its contract to provide meals to seniors because it didn’t comply with San Francisco’s domestic partners law, Project Open Hand stepped up.

When women with breast cancer told us that they needed nutritious meals, we started serving them as well.

Since 1985, Project Open Hand has prepared and delivered more than 16 million life-sustaining meals to sick and elderly neighbors. We continue to provide our signature “meals with love” to people with HIV, breast cancer and seniors. And now, once again, we are stepping up to do more.

This summer, we’re expanding our grocery and meal services to serve people living with acute symptoms of more than ten additional disease diagnoses, including diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and hepatitis C, among others. With this expansion, we are using the skills we gained through almost 30 years of helping our clients survive and thrive and leveraging our core strength: providing the healthiest meals possible for people in the Bay Area with the greatest medical need for good nutrition.

Like all nonprof it organizations, Project Open Hand doesn’t exist in a bubble. External forces—like the economy, politics, medical advances and changes in our healthcare sys-

tem—all impact our work. As an example, with new medical innovations, people with HIV are living longer and managing the disease instead of dying from it. We no longer need to provide meals for those who are in good health, and we want to provide meals for those most in need.

This changing landscape means that some of the clients we currently serve, those who are healthier, may no longer qualify for services.

For clients who are no longer eligible, we will refer and transition them to other food resources in our community, including our Senior Lunch Program located in 12 sites across San Francisco. And for those HIV+ clients who need us and are still struggling with the severe symptoms of this disease, we remain committed and continue to stand by their sides.

To support our expansion, we are working hard to demonstrate the value of our nutrition services, so we can continue to attract new partners and funding. To that end, we recently launched our Food = Medicine Pilot Study in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) AIDS Research Institute.

Approximately 60 study participants with HIV and/or diabetes will have 100% of their nutritional needs met

by Project Open Hand. In addition to nutritious meals, participants will receive intensive case management and enhanced nutritional counseling and education.

The UCSF research team will monitor participants’ physical and mental health, frequency of doctor and emergency room visits, adherence to therapy and medical costs. If successful, this study will demonstrate what Project Open Hand has known anecdotally for three decades, that Food = Medicine.

By demonstrating the healthcare benefits of our nutrition services, the pilot study will enable Project Open Hand to

Food = Medicine Pilot Study This week, 35 Bay Area residents living with HIV/AIDS or a dual diagnosis of HIV/AIDS and diabetes, will begin receiving three nutr it ious, med ica l ly-ta i lored meals daily as participants in Project Open Hand’s Food = Medicine Pilot Study.

Starting today, the 35 HIV-infected study participants will receive three meals a day for four-to- six months from Project Open Hand, meals that are tailored to meet 100% of their nutritional needs. A further 25 individuals living with diabetes will also be engaged in the upcoming months. In addition to nutritious meals, participants will receive intensive case management and enhanced nutritional counseling and education from Project Open Hand.

A UCSF research team will monitor participants’ physical and mental health, frequency of doctor and emergency room visits, adherence to therapy and medical costs.

Dr. Sheri Weiser, Associate Professor of Medicine at the UCSF Div ision of HI V/A I DS at SF 2

BAY TIMES JuLY 10 , 2 0 1 4

Photos courtesy of Project Open Hand

By Kevin Winge

General Hospital who is leading the evaluation of the study, said, “We know that inadequate access to nutritious food can lead to increased hospitalizations and emergency room visits among low income, HIV-positive individuals.

We believe this study will help us to solidify the important connections between good nutrition and health care. By providing full nutritional support, we aim to show that when we address food insecurity and poor nutrition we improve the health and well-being of people who are critically ill.”

The study results and analysis will be released in spring 2015.

The Food=Medicine research builds on a 2013 study by MANNA, a nonprofit in Philadelphia, which showed that critically ill clients eating healthy meals reduced their medical costs by over 60%.

People interested in supporting Project Open Hand and this pilot study are encouraged to make donations at www.openhand.org/ donate

seize new funding opportunities, continue to expand our services, and explore the opportunities for reimbursement under the Affordable Care Act—but most of all, serve our clients better.

Project Open Hand will be here for as long as there is a need for our lifesustaining nutrition. As we have done since Ruth Brinker prepared and delivered those very first meals, we will continue to depend on the community to realize our vision: “No one who is sick or elderly in our community will go without nutritious meals with love.”

Kevin Winge is the Executive Director of Project Open Hand.

Secondhand Smoke a

RELATIONSHIP.

If you’re being exposed,

tell your loved one Smoking is not just deadly to them, secondhand

smoke is deadly to you.

you have the right to

smoke-free air.

1-800-NO BUTTS ©2014 California Department of Public Health

3

BAY TIMES JuLY 10 , 2 0 1 4

History Happens

News from the GLBT Historical Society & The GLBT History Museum Fifty years ago, an infamous LIFE magazine article catapulted San Francisco into national consciousness as the “gay capital” of America. Titled “Homosexuality In America,” the article represented tensions between the larger culture’s notions of queerness and what was emerging into open view in San Francisco.

Join us at the GLBT History Museum on Friday, July 18, 7-9 p.m. for the opening reception for “1964: The Year San Francisco Came Out,” an exhibition that celebrates the pivotal moment when queer people began to define themselves on their own terms.

It does so by exploring the powerful convergence of events and people—both local and national, queer and straight— that turned what could have been a shameful outing into an irrevocable, determined stepping out of the closet.

The exhibition is curated by community historian Paul Gabriel.

Society Gets $75 Grant from National Archives The GLBT Historical Society has received another generous grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (part of the National Archives) to support an 18-month archival project. In this project, called “Visions and Voices of GLBT History,” we’ll complete a survey of all our audiovisual and photograph collections, process as much of our backlog as we can (close to 200 linear feet), and prioritize materials for future digitization.

Many of our historically rich collections contain audiovisual and photographic materials that are inaccessible to researchers because they have not yet been sorted and catalogued. The old adage “a picture is worth 1,000 words” is especially resonant in the LGBT community where, even in 2014, it is still rare for people who do not identify as heterosexual to see representations of themselves.

“The Mary Richards collection is an example of the materials we’ll be able to process thanks to this grant,” said

GLBTHS archivist Marjorie Bryer.

“It contains more than 150 audiotaped interviews with notable community leaders, such as José Sarria and Pat Norman.”

We previously received an NHPRC grant in 2011, which enabled us to survey and process our manuscript collections.

In the Archives GLBT people have played significant roles in the history of the Bay Area tech community. Two interesting organizations are represented by collections we have accessioned (processed into our archives) this year.

High Tech Gays filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense in 1984, protesting a policy that denied security clearances to queer people. In 1990 they lost, but in 1995, Clinton ended the policy by executive order. (Fun fact: the DoD unit with the offending policy was the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Off ice, or DISCO). Digital Queers was a San Francisco-based non-prof it that helped GLBT organizations upgrade their technology and increase their access to the Internet in the 90’s.

Out on 18th Street Meet Cees van Aalst, one of the friendly volunteers at the GLBT History Museum, who answers questions and listens to the stories visitors tell about their own experiences with LGBT issues and history. He grew up in a conservative Protestant home in the Netherlands, and moved to the US in 1958. He worked for Pan Am airlines, and retired in 1986.

“I enjoy meeting people from all over the globe, and occasionally I meet people who have made significant contributions to the advancement of LGBT issues,” Cees said. “I think the museum helps to dispel any wrong notions people may have about us and our ‹lifestyle. I give everyone a warm welcome and a positive view.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GLBT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

1964: The Year San Francisco Came Out

come to the GLBT History Museum for a talk by lesbian playwright Terry Baum titled “Lorena Hickok: Butch Dyke, Renowned Journalist & Eleanor Roosevelt’s lover.” “Hick” was the most famous woman journalist of her day when she and the future First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt fell in love; she lived in the White House and was often at Roosevelt’s side. $5 donation requested; members always admitted free.

On Thursday, July 17, from 7 to 9 p.m. the GLBT History Museum will present a special program celebrating the upcoming ebook release of Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out (1991), co-edited by Loraine Hutch­ ins and Lani Ka’ahumanu.

Ka’ahumanu will read from the work along with other contributors to the groundbreaking anthology, including Kuwaza Imara, Carol Queen, Naomi

Other Upcoming Events On Tuesday, July 15, from 7 to 9 p.m.,

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PATRICK CARNEY

BAY TIMES JuLY 10 , 2 0 1 4

On Thursday, July 31, from 7 to 9 p.m., come to the GLBT History Museum for a slide lecture on the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union, a queer-friendly union that organized workers on Pacific cruise ships. The lecture, based on research by the late historian Allan Bérubé, will be pre-

The GLBT History Museum: 4127 18th Street, San Francisco; 415-621-1107; www. glbthistorymuseum.org GLBT Historical Society: 657 Mission Street, Suite 300, San Francisco; 415-7775455, ext. 3#; www.glbthistory.org

the Quilt to Washington, DC, for display on the National Mall. It was viewed by 1.2 million people.

Anthony Turney December 23, 1937 – July 4, 2014

4

sented by Estelle Freedman, professor of US history at Stanford University. $5 donation requested; members always admitted free.

In Memoriam

Want to become a museum volunteer, like Cees? Contact Jeremy Prince at jeremy@glbthistory.org

Pink Triangle founder Patrick Carney and his husband Hossein were joined by family members, friends and a big team of excited volunteers on June 28, 2014, for the early morning Pink Saturday installation atop Twin Peaks.

Tucker, and Charles J. Barragan. The event will benefit the GLBT History Museum and the Bay Area Bisexual Network. $5 donation requested; members always admitted free.

The Venerable Anthony Turney, Archdeacon for the Arts at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, died peacefully at Coming Home Hospice following a three-year battle with cancer. He was 76, and his death came on the 38th anniversary of his becoming a United States citizen.

Born in Sutton, England, openly gay Turney looked forward to moving to the United States, his adopted country. With the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, Turney’s life changed course again. In mid 1991, he quit his work to care for his partner, James Brumbaugh, who was dying from AIDS-related compli­cations. It was a devastating loss.

In 1992, after completing Jimmy’s AIDS Memorial quilt panel, he asked, “What would you have me do now, God?” Within months, he moved permanently to San Francisco, was appointed CEO of the NAMES Project Foundation, and after only three years, would bring more than 42,000 panels of

Turney found his spiritual home at Grace Cathedral, where he served as parishioner, as Canon for Development, and then, through his vocational calling, as clergy. In addition to serving as Archdeacon for the Arts, he also served as Chaplain to the Dean’s Search Committee for Grace Cathedral.

In lieu of f lowers, donations in Anthony’s memory may be made to one of the following: The Sacred Dying Foundation (www.sacred dying.org), The Rainbow Honor Wa l k (w w w. r a i n b o w h o n or walk. org), the Ghiberti Foun­ dation, the arts and culture foundation at Grace Cathedral (www.gracecathedral.org) or the San Francisco Opera Archive (www.sfopera.com).

A funeral and celebration of Anthony’s life will be held at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral (1100 California Street) on Monday, July 14, at 11am.

Frank M. Robinson August 9, 1926 – June 30, 2014 Frank M. Robinson, a speechwriter for Harvey Milk who penned Milk’s memorable “You’ve Got to Have Hope” speech and other often-

quoted Milk speeches, died Monday, June 30, in San Francisco.

He was 87. Robinson, an out gay man, wrote for Milk’s campaign and has been credited for helping Milk to win his historic election to the SF Board of Supervisors in 1977.

Robinson was also a well-known science fiction and technothriller writer. Three of his many novels were made into Hollywood blockbusters: The Power, The Glass Inferno (which became The Towering Inferno) and The Gold Crew (retitled The Fifth Missile).

Robinson played himself in a cameo role in the 2008 movie Milk. Upon hearing of Robinson’s death, Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black said that Robinson “was like a father to me. To say the earth feels made of quicksand lately makes it sound too solid. Frank, I’ll miss your thunderous laughter, your protective love and your razor sharp writer’s mind.”

A memorial event is currently being planned.

Ensuring Protection and Inclusion for LGBT Seniors

Aging in Community Amy Whelan In the previous Aging in Community column, Daniel Redman discussed key legal documents all LGBT seniors should have, but that are particularly important for people living with dementia. This week, I will focus on barriers to care and what providers can do to protect their LGBT clients or patients.

Barr iers to Competent a nd Effective Care LGBT seniors are at risk for isolation and early institutionalization because they are more likely than heterosexual seniors to be childless, single, and living alone. In times of crisis, all of us should have designated people who can care for us and help us access services. But for people with dementia, who become increasingly dependent on others for care, an empowered advocate is essential to accessing and coordinating care and making key medical decisions.

Because LGBT seniors tend to rely on “families of choice”—often composed of loved ones or friends—problems also arise. Friends and loved ones who are not related by blood or marriage often lack legal and institutional recognition. And if blood relatives do interfere, problems can quickly get worse because institutions tend to defer to those relatives over other people.

Some LGBT seniors may also fear discrimination by service providers.

LGBT seniors grew up in a time of extreme discrimination and bias. In the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of gay and lesbian federal employees lost their jobs during the “Lavender Scare.”

Gay men and lesbians were thought to have severe mental illness and LGBT citizens and their families had no legal protections whatsoever. Many LGBT people were forced into mental institutions or subjected to conversion therapy in an attempt to “cure” them.

By the time the AIDS epidemic hit in the 1980s, the US government persistently ignored the crisis, forcing LGBT people to create their own support networks and services.

Given this historical backdrop, it is no surprise that some LGBT seniors— particularly LGBT seniors of color, who live in poverty, or are otherwise marginalized—fear disclosing their sexual orientation or gender identity to service providers. According to a study by the National Senior Citizens Law Center, NCLR and others, only 22 percent of LGBT respondents said they could be open with facility staff about their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The resulting problems for LGBT seniors are alarming. They may fear that they will be mistreated if service providers or others learn of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and may not even seek care in the first place because of those fears. They may feel uncomfortable having their friends or loved ones visit. They may not be allowed to express their gender identity, or clinicians might wrongly attribute their gender identity issues to dementia or mental health issues.

Or previously estranged family members may swoop in, decide that the partner has no legal rights, and ban that partner from visiting or caring for her loved one.

Finally, many service providers are often unprepared to provide LGBTcompetent care. Even well-meaning staff can be a problem. NCLR recently assisted a lesbian who was housed in a hospice facility. Because she did not have enough clothes, the facility appropriately filled the gap by providing donated clothes. But they were not clothes she would ever choose to wear—including dresses and flowery shirts. She felt extremely uncomfortable and humiliated wearing the clothes, but she suffered in silence because of her extreme dependence on staff for basic, day-to-day care.

What Providers and Caretakers Can Do to Protect LGBT Seniors So what can service providers and others do to protect the LGBT population? In addition to being generally aware of LGBT seniors and the issues they face, service providers can: •Have robust LGBT nondiscrimination policies that are aggressively enforced, including policies that specifically allow same-sex couples to share rooms or otherwise live together.

•Arrange staff training about LGBT senior issues (Openhouse, Spectrum, and the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging are just a few organizations that provide this).

•Avoid assumptions about patients’ sexual orientations, gender identities, or families when interacting with all patients and loved ones.

LGBT Resources for Seniors • Openhouse: 415-296-8995 openhouse-sf.org/ • Family Caregiver Alliance: 415-434-3388 www.caregiver.org • Institute on Aging: 415-7504111, www.ioaging.org/ • National Resource Center on LGBT Aging www.lgbtagingcenter.org/ • Project Open Hand San Francisco: Nutrition Services, 415-447-2300 www.openhand.org/ • SAGE: 212-741-2247 www.sageusa.org/about/ • Shanti Project, Inc: HIV Services and Life Threatening Illnesses, 415-674-4700 www.shanti.org/ Alzheimer’s Association Programs and Services: • 24/7 Helpline: 1-800-2723900, www.alz.org/norcal/; Online Community: www. alzheimersblog.org/lgbt-forum • Memory Clinic, Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center: 408-5306900, mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/facilities/region/santaclara/area_master/ departments/memoryclinic/ index.jsp

Dr. Marcy Adelman oversees the Aging in Community column. For her summary of current LGBT senior challenges and opportunities, please go to: sf baytimes.com/challenges-andopportunties

Certified Personal Trainer / Biomechanic Medical Exercise Practitioner Geriatric Specialist

Osteoporosis / Parkinson’s / Alzheimer’s

415-508-9652 www.yourbiomechanic.com

bi•o•me•chan•ics/noun: the mechanics of biological and especially muscular activity(as in locomotion or exercise)

SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY - BAY AREA DISABILITY -

ATTORNEY HAMILTON TATUM HOLT IV

•Ensure that intake forms, marketing materials, and other written materials are LGBT-inclusive.

PRACTICE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY INSURANCE (SSDI) AND SUPPLEMENTAL SECURITY INCOME (SSI) (AND RELATED CLAIMS)

•Actively recruit openly LGBT staff, administrators and board members.

•Respect patients’ gender identities, pronouns, and names and ensure that all staff do this as well.

•Have LGBT-friendly posters and pictures on websites, in marketing materials, in facilities, in intake areas, or wherever services are provided.

(415) 465-3970

QUALIFIED TO PRACTICE NATIONWIDE BEFORE THE US SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION MEMBER OF THE FLORIDA BAR DISABILITY ACCOMMODATIONS: HOUSE CALLS

FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION NO FEE OR COSTS UNLESS YOU WIN IN SAN RAFAEL SFBAYAREADISABILITY.COM

Fountaingrove Lodge Gives Back All Summer Long!

•Reach out to other providers with experience with transgender patients when specific medical or other issues arise (e.g. the Transgender clinic of Tom Waddell Health Center).

•Be vigilant about potential abuse by family members or others. If you see someone at risk, direct patients and partners to essential legal forms. If serious issues arise, call NCLR or other legal groups for advice about protecting patients and their partners.

While the suggestions listed above are targeted to LGBT seniors, they represent universal notions of caretaking and treatment that should apply to everyone. Each of us deserves to live and age with dignity, respect, and understanding.

Amy Whelan is a Senior Staff Attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR).

BAY TIMES JuLY 10 , 2 0 1 4

Pain Management Postural Realignment Balance Flexibility and Strength

Richard Alexei

•Train medical and mental health staff not to dismiss gender identity issues as symptoms of dementia or other conditions.

7

OurAge Fitness

Join us for an afternoon of Fine Wines and Live Entertainment while we fundraise for 3 local LGBT and ally non-profit organizations!

July 20th

Da Puna Bruddahs – Hawaiian band

August 17th

Del Sol – Latin Jazz

2:30-4:30pm Kindly RSVP as space is limited.

All Proceeds to Benefit Face to Face, Food for Thought and Positive Images.

4210 Thomas Lake Harris Dr. Santa Rosa, CA 95403

707-800-3196

fountaingrovelodge.com RCFE #496803440

If You’re in the Homestretch Before Retirement, It’s Time to ‘Floor It’ makes sense to set aside as much money as possible to protect the ability to enjoy your desired lifestyle in retirement.

Those nearing retirement have a chance to ‘catch up’

Money Matters Brandon Miller, CFP & Joanne Jordan, CFP As people enter their 50s and early 60s, earnings from work or other income sources often begin to reach a peak. In many instances, this also happens at the same time some expenses decrease—people might not need to worry about college tuition costs for kids, or perhaps they paid off the home mortgage.

Based on all of these factors, people may have more discretionary money available during this period than at any other time in life. You may or may not find yourself in this exact situation, but one thing is clear—the last decade or two you spend working is a great opportunity to build financial security for retirement.

This fact seems to hit home as individuals reach their 50th birthday.

There is a greater sense of urgency about finding ways to stash more money away for retirement savings— either workplace plans like a 401(k) or other accounts such as an IRA. Whatever savings vehicle you use, it

While tax laws may restrict how much money you can direct to a workplace savings plan or IRA on an annual basis, once you reach age 50, you have more flexibility. Provisions in the tax code allow for “catch-up” contributions to these types of tax-advantaged savings plans. Assuming you’ve earned sufficient income, in 2014, those who will reach age 50 and older can contribute: • Up to $23,000 to a traditional 401(k), 403(b) or most 457 plans.

By comparison, those under age 50 are limited to contributions of no more than $17,500 per year.

• Up to $14,500 to a SIMPLE 401(k) plan (compared to the standard limit of $12,000).

• As much as $6,500 per year to an IRA (either traditional or Roth IRA or a combination of the two).

That’s $1,000 more than is allowed for those under age 50.

The extra several thousand dollars you are allowed to invest in tax-deferred accounts can make a big difference if you take advantage of it yearafter-year.

Making the most of your closing years of work Maximizing retirement plan contributions and other savings targeted for

retirement funding is critical as your working life winds down. It represents the last best chance for you to accumulate wealth to achieve your financial goals for your post-working years.

Here are some things you might want to consider doing: • Contribute as much as you can to your workplace savings plan. If your employer offers a matching contribution, you’ll want to at least contribute enough to fully capitalize on the match. If possible, contribute the maximum amount allowed.

• Add money to your IRA and, if possible, try to build some money in a Roth IRA to take advantage of the potential of tax-free withdrawals later in life.

• Set additional dollars aside in savings or brokerage accounts if you’ve maximized contributions to retirement accounts.

There are many variables to think about when it comes to planning for retirement. Consider talking with a financial professional to help make sure you’re on track for your specific retirement goals.

Brandon Miller, CFP and Joanne Jordan, CFP are financial consultants at Jordan Miller & Associates, A Private Wealth Advisory Practice of Ameriprise Financial Inc. in San Francisco, specializing in helping LGBT individuals and families plan and achieve their financial goals.

Some Economy Cars Are Still in the Closet, Others Are Out and Proud

Auto Philip Ruth Now that we’ve all recovered from Pride, we can appreciate how our yearly extravaganza benefits us in the coming-out process. The three economy cars I’ve tested recently struck me as being very much in line with the various stages of that process, with entries from Chevrolet, Ford and Nissan.

Let’s start with the closeted one, the Chevy Spark EV 2LT. EV means pure electric car, which justifies this tiny hatchback’s $28,570 price. Among its standard equipment: “Very limited vehicle service availability outside California and Oregon.” That’s fair warning: no trips to Vegas with this one. The best you’ll get is maybe a jaunt to a cabin in Portland.

There would be many recharges along the way, judging from my measured range. Granted, San Francisco’s hills bring out the guzzler in every car, and 8

BAY TIMES JuLY 10 , 2 0 1 4

The Nissan Versa Note is a slightly larger hatchback that feels like it’s just getting comfortable with itself, like it just came out. You might choose it for the availability of Nissan’s trademarked “Around View Monitor,” where a shift into reverse turns the 5.8” touchscreen into a clear overhead view of the car and every curb and pedestrian around it. Imagine never having to get out to see if you’re blocking a driveway. The Versa Note offers that for about $20K. I’d like to say nice things about the way the Versa Note drives, but the brakes are soft like a limp handshake, and the engine thrashes like the mind of someone who’s churning with self-acceptance. Much is good about the Versa Note, and its technology is advanced, but be prepared for the unvarnished responses of the newly outed.

And then there’s the $18K Ford Fiesta SFE. It’s sized like the Versa Note, but feels like it has been out and proud for years. Three wee cylinders power the SFE (as opposed to four in the Note), and with the EcoBoost turbo, the SFE

generates surprisingly smooth and usable power while notching 36 mpg EPA overall, as opposed to the Note’s 35 mpg. The Fiesta SFE feels seasoned, as if it’s been around the block.

More interaction is needed to get the benefit: the Fiesta SFE comes only with a manual transmission, and you wouldn’t want it without it, because the shifter helps you rev the engine into a range where you find yourself having real fun with the car, where the Fiesta’s European platform’s handling lets you push further than you thought a typical econobox could.

That’s how it is when you date someone who’s settled in their sexuality; you end up feeling even more comfortable in your own.

Philip Ruth is a Castro-based automotive photojournalist and consultant at www.gaycarguy.com. Check out his automotive staging service at www.carstaging.com

PHOTO BY PHYLLIS COSTA

I ran the Spark in Sport mode with the lights on, but I drove just 33 miles with a full charge before the dashboard darkly warned of imminent depletion.

Not an issue if you’re plugging it in after a round of city errands, but otherwise, owning the Spark EV is like dating someone who’s closeted, in that you can only get so far.

Honda of Oakland’s Ridgeline truck in the Bay Times contingent, SF Pride Parade 2014

DEFINED BY DESIGN, AN ATTENTION TO PERFECTION, GRACIOUS AND SPACIOUS.

TWO AND THREE BEDROOM UNITS AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY 8 TENTH STREET ∙ SAN FRANCISCO ∙ CA 94103 RENTNEMA.COM / 415-881-5057 /

#RENTNEMA

Crescent Heights ® is a service mark used by a group of limited liability companies and partnerships. NEMA is being developed by Tenth and Market, LLC, which is a separate, single purpose entity that is solely responsible for its development, obligations and liabilities. Renderings, photographs and other information described are representational only. We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of Equal Housing Opportunity throughout the Nation. We encourage and support an affirmative advertising and marketing program in which there are no barriers to obtaining housing because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin.

9

BAY TIMES JuLY 10 , 2 0 1 4

Pride Season Events – Photos by Rink The month of June found Bay Times photographer Rink all over town. Stuart Milk unveiled a life-size figure of his uncle Harvey at Madame Tussauds. Several thousand marchers took to the streets on Friday, June 27, for the 11th Annual Trans March. Grand Marshals for Pride

2014 were introduced at SF Pride’s Press Preview and at the annual Pride Brunch, hosted by Gary Virginia and Donna Sachet. The streets were full of festival and party goers throughout the day on Saturday, June 28.

City Hall & Pride VIP Party – Photos by Steven Underhill

PHOTO BY RINK

10

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

Keith Haring exhibit. During Sunday’s VIP Party inside City Hall, he visited with Former Congressman Barney Frank, SF Pride President Gary Virginia and Dr. Kathleen McGuire, who was visiting from Australia.

PHOTO BY RINK

PHOTO BY RINK

Bay Times photographer Steven Underhill was at SF City Hall throughout Pride Weekend.

During the Pride Festival on Saturday, he visited exhibit booths, including those of Olivia Travel and the San Francisco Fine Arts Museum, which featured images from the upcoming

www.stevenunderhill.com

Congratulations from the Bay Times to the SF Pride Committee for the success of “Color Our World with Pride” for 2014.

44th Annual San Franisco Pride Parade – Photos by Rink From his position on the Market Street parade route, Rink captured highlights of the 2014 SF Pride Parade, including the Lesbian/ Gay Freedom Band, and contingents from Apple, AIDS Life/Cycle, Balloon Magic, SF Police Department, Celebrity Grand Marshal Janet Mock, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom and more.

Bay Times Contingent – Photos by Phyllis Costa

11

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

blasted feel good tunes engineered by award-wining sound expert Randall Schiller. Gray Line of San Francisco’s Jaz Cariola managed the Golden Gate Bridge international orange-hued touring vehicle and led the distribution of goodie bags provided by Extreme Pizza and Honda of Oakland. NAPA Cellars Wines created t-shirts for the Bay Times volunteers.

PHOTO BY PHYLLIS COSTA

PHOTO BY PHYLLIS COSTA

The Bay Times’ large contingent in the 2014 Pride Parade, photographed by Phyllis Costa, included the popular Ride the Ducks amphibian vehicle driven by Captain Duck Rogers, who was accompanied by his husband of five years. Honda of Oakland’s Cole Weeks and his husband drove a shiny 2014 Honda Ridgeline Crew Cab truck, aka the Love Machine, which

Sincere thanks to all volunteers and supporters who helped in so many ways in creating this fabulous contingent for 2014.

Reflections on Pride 2014: Kudos to Ridgely, Praise for Ammiano and Thanks to Stewart egists and (some of) the lawyers who challenged Proposition 8, taking the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court and, along the way, restoring same-sex marriage rights in California. It’s an emotional story, and I’ll admit to getting a little weepy at points.

But, although the film was well done and quite moving, after my tears had dried, I realized I was bothered by two things. One was the film’s lionization of right-wing legal eagle Ted Olson, who, setting aside his work for same-sex marriage, has done consistent and significant harm to many of the progressive causes most of us San Franciscans care about (see e.g., the havoc wrought on the world by Olson’s success in stopping the Florida recount in 2000, thereby ensuring that George W. Bush would serve Al Gore’s term in the White House).

A San Francisco Kind of Democrat Rafael Mandelman In the blink of an eye, the Queer Pride Holigayz of 2014 were over and done. But what fun we had! Special kudos are due to George Ridgely, the new Executive Director of SF Pride, who is doing a tremendous job and managed to make the 44th Annual Pride Celebration seemingly a great success. No small feat for an organization that, only a year ago, some were speculating might not make it another year. Congratulations, George, and congratulations, SF Pride!

The other was raised by one of the attendees during the Q&A that followed the screening, namely that the movie largely ignored the role played

by Chief Deputy City Attorney Terrie Stewart and the other attorneys from the City Attorney’s off ice, not just in the original litigation challenging California’s statutory same-sex marriage ban in 2008, but also in making the standing arguments that, by the way, actually won over a majority on the Supreme Court in 2013. Stewart, the filmmakers explained, had not felt comfortable giving them the same on-camera access to pre-trial preparatory work that some of the other lawyers had been comfortable giving, which may explain her absence from their story, but also left their story seeming incomplete.

As this was Tom Ammiano’s last Pride as a member of the Assembly, and possibly as an elected official, his appearances at the various Pride events inevitably took on a bittersweet, nostalgic feel. From the Pink Triangle ceremony at the top of Twin Peaks Saturday morning to Tom’s own traditional post-parade party in his State Building office Sunday afternoon, the weekend offered folks like Orange Is The New Black star Lea DeLaria, outgoing Speaker of the Assembly John Perez, and a host of others abundant opportunities to reflect on Ammiano’s contributions to our culture and politics.

Speaking of Terrie Stewart, just in time for Pride weekend, Jerry Brown announced he would be appointing her to serve on the California Court of Appeal. Certainly this is a great and well-deserved honor for Stewart, and it’s a milestone for the queer community, as Stewart now will become the first openly lesbian California appellate judge. Nonetheless, I will confess to holding some selfishly mixed feelings about losing her from our City Attorney’s office, and especially as the City Attorney’s lawsuit against the Accreditation Commission for Community and Junior Colleges heats up. As a City College Trustee, I have been so grateful to have Stewart in that fight, and I had been quite relishing the prospect of Stewart deposing ACCJC President Barbara Beno.

Thank you, Terrie, a million thank yous, for everything.

His accomplishments in both arenas are too many to list, but for me, Ammiano represents the model of the principled politician, someone who has managed to succeed as a politician without sacrificing his values, who practices politics as an art of transformation rather than of accommodation, and who has been able to be both outspoken and effective at the same time. Ammiano is not done by a long shot, and happily I’m sure he’ll manage to make his influence felt for years to come, but like a lot of others this weekend, I could not help thinking that we will miss having him in elected office very very much.

For some of us, of course, Pride month is mainly an opportunity to binge on queer cinema. Frameline opened its 38th annual LGBT film festival with a screening of The Case Against 8 before a packed house at the Castro Theater on the night of June 19. The documentary tells the stories of the plaintiffs, political strat-

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano 12

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

Terrie Stewart with City Attorney Dennis Herrera

PHOTO BY RINK

George Ridgeley with Lisa Williams

PHOTO SOURCE: JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL

PHOTO BY RINK

Bay Times columnist Rafael Mandelman (right) and friends

PHOTO BY STEVEN UNDERHILL

Rafael Mandelman was elected to the San Francisco Community College Board of Trustees in 2012. He is a partner at Burke, Williams & Sorensen, LLP.

Come Out for Castro Valley Pride, July 12 Now that we’ve celebrated San Francisco Pride, it’s time to hit the road (or hop on BART) and head to one of the most enthusiastic and meaningful Pride celebrations in all of California: Castro Valley Pride.

It’s a fabulous Pride celebration in the sometimes-sleepy suburban community of Castro Valley, 30 miles southeast of San Francisco.

But things will be anything but sleepy on July 12.

Castro Valley Pride is the brainchild of Castro Valley High School students and Billy Bradford, a seasoned and fearless activist with Marriage Equality USA and GetEqual. A longtime resident of Castro Valley, Billy stands up for what’s right—leading countless rallies all over the Bay Area for marriage equality and for full LGBTQ equality in all 50 states. He also sits down to risk arrest in the face of injustice, whether protesting Proposition 8, religious intolerance, or the Chickfil-A owner’s anti-LGBTQ views.

A gay dad himself, Billy’s most important work perhaps is inspiring and empowering students and other young people in Castro Valley to stand up for their lives and to be out, loud and proud where they live.

Three years ago, the students and Billy conceived of the first Castro Valley Pride as simply a couple doz-

Marriage Equality Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis, Marriage Equality USA en or so people walking down the sidewalk to the Community Center.

Instead, hundreds of people, including students, parents, church goers, politicians, and residents decided to show up, and the event transformed into a full-f ledged Pride festival in the high school parking lot.

Every year, Castro Valley Pride has grown bigger and better. And Billy invites everyone to come! In his own words: “Castro Valley Pride is back for the 4th year with 50 booths (including a number of area churches), compelling speakers, wonderful musical performers, dozens of community and special interest groups as well as food trucks! Our wish is to cre-

ate a safe and welcoming space for the LGBTQ community as well as to give our friends, family, neighbors, and allies a place to enjoy a beautiful summer day together. We think it’s important for Castro Valley and the surrounding areas to understand that our families share the same visions and values that all American families share. We must continue to remain visible locally while acting globally, with a renewed push for full equality across the country and around the world.

Please join us on Saturday, July 12, and let’s make sure that Castro Valley is a safe place for everyone.”

W HER E: Castro Valley High School, 19501 Santa Maria Avenue, Castro Valley WHEN: Saturday, July 12, 2014, 12:00pm - 5:00pm For more information, please visit htt ps://w w w.facebook.com/ CVPride No need to worry about fog either, so come on out to Castro Valley Pride!

John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney, together for nearly three decades, were plaintiffs in the California case for equal marriage rights decided by the California Supreme Court in 2008. They are leaders in the nationwide grassroots organization Marriage Equality USA.

Interview with Rev. Rachel Rivers, Swedenborgian Minister and Wedding Officient (Editor’s Note: Reverend Elizabeth River recently interviewed Reverend Rachel Rivers—no relation!—for the SF Bay Times. Still waters run deep here, as both women are experienced, thoughtful officiants who are passionate about their work.

The two are good friends.)

together, and what qualities in their partner they especially value and appreciate. We explore the course of their relationship, including past and present joys and challenges, and what they look forward to in their life together.

Rev. Elizabeth River: What do you like best about being a wedding officiant?

Rev. Elizabeth River: What other things would you like to say about your wedding ministry?

Rev. Rachel Rivers: My favorite aspect of being a wedding officiant is getting to know a couple and helping them to focus on what is most meaningful to them, and creating a wedding ceremony that truly speaks for them. I also cherish helping to create a ritual where people come together primarily to express and share their joy in the love of a couple they care for.

Rev. Elizabeth River: What is your spiritual or faith tradition? Do you create/officiate weddings in other traditions, or for people who are not religious?

Rev. Rachel Rivers: My faith tradition is Swedenborgian, which is a liberal Protestant Christian denomination founded in England in the 1780’s, based on the theological writings of the 18th century scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Key to this tradition is the understanding that the physical world is ideally a place for what is spiritual to take root and blossom. The essence of the spiritual is love, and this love radiates in an infinite number of ways. Hence the belief that there is a myriad of ways of loving, and that different faiths are like “jewels in a crown” all potentially enhancing one another.

13

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

Weddings Elizabeth River I specialize in officiating at weddings for people who are “spiritual but not religious,” or from different faiths, or who embrace some, but not all, aspects of the faith they were raised in, or who find their faith in the natural world. I enjoy working with couples to create a wedding ceremony that fits their individual needs and desires and beliefs.

Rev. E l izabet h R iver: A re there things that are particularly gratifying about marrying lesbian and gay couples?

Rev. Rachel Rivers: I have been off iciating at same gender wedding ceremonies in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than twenty years. I am particularly moved now finally to be legally authorized to conclude these ceremonies with the words: “By the power vested in me by the state of California, I do now pronounce you married.”

Rev. Elizabeth River: What do you do in your first meeting with a couple, to help prepare yourself for creating their ceremony?

Rev. Rachel Rivers: I ask them about their lives, their backgrounds, how they met, what they enjoy doing

Rev. Rachel Rivers: I encourage, but do not require, couples to take the time to engage in premarital counseling—usually four sessions, and often using the Prepare/Enrich premarital inventory. I have been serving as a minister, individual & marriage counselor, and spiritual director in the San Francisco Bay Area for twenty-four years. I was pastor of the San Francisco Swedenborgian Church from 1990 to 2008. As well as being an ordained minister, I am also a nationally certified pastoral counselor, premarital counselor, and mental health counselor. I especially appreciate the opportunity to provide premarital counseling for couples I will be marrying.

Rev. Elizabeth River: What is your contact information?

And where do you usually perform weddings?

Rev. Rachel Rivers: I enjoy off iciating at weddings of any size in various locations, including in churches, banquet halls, private homes, gardens, beaches and parks throughout the Bay Area. I can be reached at 415-669-9896 and at R.Rachel.Rivers@gmail.com Rev. Elizabeth River is an ordained Interfaith Minister based in the North Bay. Visit www.marincoastweddings.com

What is STRIBILD? STRIBILD is a prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before. It combines 4 medicines into 1 pill to be taken once a day with food. STRIBILD is a complete single-tablet regimen and should not be used with other HIV-1 medicines.

STRIBILD does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. To control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses you must keep taking STRIBILD. Ask your healthcare provider if you have questions about how to reduce the risk of passing HIV-1 to others. Always practice safer sex and use condoms to lower the chance of sexual contact with body fluids. Never reuse or share needles or other items that have body fluids on them.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION What is the most important information I should know about STRIBILD? STRIBILD can cause serious side effects: • Build-up of an acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious medical emergency.

Symptoms of lactic acidosis include feeling very weak or tired, unusual (not normal) muscle pain, trouble breathing, stomach pain with nausea or vomiting, feeling cold especially in your arms and legs, feeling dizzy or lightheaded, and/or a fast or irregular heartbeat.

• Serious liver problems. The liver may become large (hepatomegaly) and fatty (steatosis). Symptoms of liver problems include your skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow (jaundice), dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored bowel movements (stools), loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, and/or stomach pain.

• You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or serious liver problems if you are female, very overweight (obese), or have been taking STRIBILD for a long time.

In some cases, these serious conditions have led to death.

Call your healthcare provider right away if you have any symptoms of these conditions.

14

• Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. If you also have HBV and stop taking STRIBILD, your hepatitis may suddenly get worse.

Do not stop taking STRIBILD without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to monitor your health.

STRIBILD is not approved for the treatment of HBV.

Who should not take STRIBILD? Do not take STRIBILD if you: • Take a medicine that contains: alfuzosin, dihydroergotamine, ergotamine, methylergonovine, cisapride, lovastatin, simvastatin, pimozide, sildenafil when used for lung problems (Revatio®), triazolam, oral midazolam, rifampin or the herb St. John’s wort.

• For a list of brand names for these medicines, please see the Brief Summary on the following pages.

• Take any other medicines to treat HIV-1 infection, or the medicine adefovir (Hepsera®).

What are the other possible side effects of STRIBILD? Serious side effects of STRIBILD may also include: • New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do regular blood and urine tests to check your kidneys before and during treatment with STRIBILD. If you develop kidney problems, your healthcare provider may tell you to stop taking STRIBILD. • Bone problems, including bone pain or bones getting soft or thin, which may lead to fractures. Your healthcare provider may do tests to check your bones.

• Changes in body fat can happen in people taking HIV-1 medicines.

• Changes in your immune system.

Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections.

Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking STRIBILD. The most common side effects of STRIBILD include nausea and diarrhea. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effects that bother you or don’t go away.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking STRIBILD? • All your health problems. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you have or had any kidney, bone, or liver problems, including hepatitis virus infection.

• All the medicines you take, including prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. STRIBILD may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how STRIBILD works. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist. Do not start any new medicines while taking STRIBILD without first talking with your healthcare provider.

• If you take hormone-based birth control (pills, patches, rings, shots, etc).

• If you take antacids.

Take antacids at least 2 hours before or after you take STRIBILD. • If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if STRIBILD can harm your unborn baby.

Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking STRIBILD. • If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed.

Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk. Also, some medicines in STRIBILD can pass into breast milk, and it is not known if this can harm the baby.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Please see Brief Summary of full Prescribing Information with important warnings on the following pages.

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

Ad Page 1

PALIO Date: 4.7.14 • Client: Gilead • Product: Stribild • File Name: 16873_pgiqdp_J_Drew_BAY_TIMES_SF_fi.indd Ad Size: 9.75” x 16.0” (Non-Bleed Newspaper Ad)

Drew Bay Times-San Francisco

STRIBILD is a prescription medicine used as a complete single-tablet regimenmedicine to treat HIV-1 in STRIBILD is a prescription used as a complete single-tablet regimen to treat HIV-1 in adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines adults who have never before.

STRIBILD does nottaken cure HIV-1 HIV-1 medicines or AIDS. before. STRIBILD does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.

I started my personal revolution

I started my revolution Talkpersonal to your healthcare provider about starting treatment.

Talk to your healthcare provider STRIBILD is a complete about starting treatment.HIV-1

treatment in 1 pill, once a day.

STRIBILD is a complete HIV-1 treatment in 1 pill, once a day.

Ask if it’s right for you.

Ask if it’s right for you.

15

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

Ad Page 2

PALIO Date: 4.7.14 • Client: Gilead • Product: Stribild • File Name: 16873_pgiqdp_J_Drew_BAY_TIMES_SF_fi.indd Ad Size: 9.75” x 16.0” (Non-Bleed Newspaper Ad)

Drew Bay Times-San Francisco

Patient Information STRIBILD (STRY-bild) (elvitegravir 150 mg/cobicistat 150 mg/emtricitabine 200 mg/ tenofovir disoproxil fumarate 300 mg) tablets ®

Brief summary of full Prescribing Information. For more information, please see the full Prescribing Information, including Patient Information.

What is STRIBILD? • STRIBILD is a prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before.

STRIBILD is a complete regimen and should not be used with other HIV-1 medicines.

• STRIBILD does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. You must stay on continuous HIV-1 therapy to control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses.

• Ask your healthcare provider about how to prevent passing HIV-1 to others. Do not share or reuse needles, injection equipment, or personal items that can have blood or body fluids on them. Do not have sex without protection. Always practice safer sex by using a latex or polyurethane condom to lower the chance of sexual contact with semen, vaginal secretions, or blood.

What is the most important information I should know about STRIBILD? STRIBILD can cause serious side effects, including: 1. Build-up of lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis). Lactic acidosis can happen in some people who take STRIBILD or similar (nucleoside analogs) medicines. Lactic acidosis is a serious medical emergency that can lead to death. Lactic acidosis can be hard to identify early, because the symptoms could seem like symptoms of other health problems. Call your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following symptoms which could be signs of lactic acidosis: • feel very weak or tired • have unusual (not normal) muscle pain

• If you stop taking STRIBILD, your healthcare provider will need to check your health often and do blood tests regularly for several months to check your HBV infection. Tell your healthcare provider about any new or unusual symptoms you may have after you stop taking STRIBILD Who should not take STRIBILD? Do not take STRIBILD if you also take a medicine that contains: • adefovir (Hepsera®) • alfuzosin hydrochloride (Uroxatral®) • cisapride (Propulsid®, Propulsid Quicksolv®) • ergot-containing medicines, including: dihydroergotamine mesylate (D.H.E. 45®, Migranal®), ergotamine tartrate (Cafergot®, Migergot®, Ergostat®, Medihaler Ergotamine®, Wigraine®, Wigrettes®), and methylergonovine maleate (Ergotrate®, Methergine®) • lovastatin (Advicor®, Altoprev®, Mevacor®) • oral midazolam • pimozide (Orap®) • rifampin (Rifadin®, Rifamate®, Rifater®, Rimactane®) • sildenafil (Revatio®), when used for treating lung problems • simvastatin (Simcor®, Vytorin®, Zocor®) • triazolam (Halcion®) • the herb St. John’s wort Do not take STRIBILD if you also take any other HIV-1 medicines, including: • Other medicines that contain tenofovir (Atripla®, Complera®, Viread®, Truvada®) • Other medicines that contain emtricitabine, lamivudine, or ritonavir (Atripla®, Combivir®, Complera®, Emtriva®, Epivir® or Epivir-HBV®, Epzicom®, Kaletra®, Norvir®, Trizivir®, Truvada®)

• have trouble breathing

STRIBILD is not for use in people who are less than 18 years old.

• have stomach pain with nausea or vomiting

What are the possible side effects of STRIBILD?

• feel cold, especially in your arms and legs • feel dizzy or lightheaded

STRIBILD may cause the following serious side effects:

• have a fast or irregular heartbeat

• See “What is the most important information I should know about STRIBILD?”

2. Severe liver problems. Severe liver problems can happen in people who take STRIBILD. In some cases, these liver problems can lead to death. Your liver may become large (hepatomegaly) and you may develop fat in your liver (steatosis). Call your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following symptoms of liver problems: • your skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow (jaundice) • dark “tea-colored” urine • light-colored bowel movements (stools) • loss of appetite for several days or longer • nausea • stomach pain You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or severe liver problems if you are female, very overweight (obese), or have been taking STRIBILD for a long time.

3. Worsening of Hepatitis B infection. If you have hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and take STRIBILD, your HBV may get worse (flareup) if you stop taking STRIBILD. A “flare-up” is when your HBV infection suddenly returns in a worse way than before.

• Do not run out of STRIBILD. Refill your prescription or talk to your healthcare provider before your STRIBILD is all gone

16

• Do not stop taking STRIBILD without first talking to your healthcare provider

• New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys before you start and while you are taking STRIBILD. Your healthcare provider may tell you to stop taking STRIBILD if you develop new or worse kidney problems.

• Bone problems can happen in some people who take STRIBILD. Bone problems include bone pain, softening or thinning (which may lead to fractures). Your healthcare provider may need to do tests to check your bones.

• Changes in body fat can happen in people who take HIV-1 medicine. These changes may include increased amount of fat in the upper back and neck (“buffalo hump”), breast, and around the middle of your body (trunk). Loss of fat from the legs, arms and face may also happen. The exact cause and long-term health effects of these conditions are not known.

• Changes in your immune system (Immune Reconstitution Syndrome) can happen when you start taking HIV-1 medicines.

Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that have been hidden in your body for a long time. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you start having any new symptoms after starting your HIV-1 medicine.

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

BS Page 1

PALIO Date: 4.7.14 • Client: Gilead • Product: Stribild • File Name: 16873_pgiqdp_J_Drew_BAY_TIMES_SF_fi.indd Ad Size: 9.75” x 16.0” (Non-Bleed Newspaper Ad)

Drew Bay Times-San Francisco

The most common side effects of STRIBILD include: • Nausea • Diarrhea Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away.

• These are not all the possible side effects of STRIBILD. For more information, ask your healthcare provider.

• Call your healthcare provider for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking STRIBILD? Tell your healthcare provider about all your medical conditions, including: • If you have or had any kidney, bone, or liver problems, including hepatitis B infection • If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if STRIBILD can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking STRIBILD. - There is a pregnancy registry for women who take antiviral medicines during pregnancy. The purpose of this registry is to collect information about the health of you and your baby. Talk with your healthcare provider about how you can take part in this registry.

• If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you take STRIBILD. - You should not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby.

- Two of the medicines in STRIBILD can pass to your baby in your breast milk. It is not known if the other medicines in STRIBILD can pass into your breast milk.

- Talk with your healthcare provider about the best way to feed your baby.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements: • STRIBILD may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how STRIBILD works.

• Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you take any of the following medicines: - Hormone-based birth control (pills, patches, rings, shots, etc) - Antacid medicines that contain aluminum, magnesium hydroxide, or calcium carbonate. Take antacids at least 2 hours before or after you take STRIBILD

- disopyramide (Norpace®) - estazolam - ethosuximide (Zarontin®) - flecainide (Tambocor®) - flurazepam - fluticasone (Flovent®, Flonase®, Flovent® Diskus®, Flovent® HFA, Veramyst®) - itraconazole (Sporanox®) - ketoconazole (Nizoral®) - lidocaine (Xylocaine®) - mexiletine - oxcarbazepine (Trileptal®) - perphenazine - phenobarbital (Luminal®) - phenytoin (Dilantin®, Phenytek®) - propafenone (Rythmol®) - quinidine (Neudexta®) - rifabutin (Mycobutin®) - rifapentine (Priftin®) - risperidone (Risperdal®, Risperdal Consta®) - salmeterol (Serevent®) or salmeterol when taken in combination with fluticasone (Advair Diskus®, Advair HFA®) - sildenafil (Viagra®), tadalafil (Cialis®) or vardenafil (Levitra®, Staxyn®), for the treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED). If you get dizzy or faint (low blood pressure), have vision changes or have an erection that last longer than 4 hours, call your healthcare provider or get medical help right away.

- tadalafil (Adcirca®), for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension - telithromycin (Ketek®) - thioridazine - voriconazole (Vfend®) - warfarin (Coumadin®, Jantoven®) - zolpidem (Ambien®, Edlular®, Intermezzo®, Zolpimist®) Know the medicines you take. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist when you get a new medicine. Do not start any new medicines while you are taking STRIBILD without first talking with your healthcare provider.

Keep STRIBILD and all medicines out of reach of children.

- atorvastatin (Lipitor®, Caduet®)

This Brief Summary summarizes the most important information about STRIBILD. If you would like more information, talk with your healthcare provider. You can also ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for information about STRIBILD that is written for health professionals, or call 1-800-445-3235 or go to www.STRIBILD.com.

- bepridil hydrochloride (Vascor®, Bepadin®)

Issued: October 2013

- Medicines to treat depression, organ transplant rejection, or high blood pressure - amiodarone (Cordarone®, Pacerone®)

- bosentan (Tracleer®) - buspirone - carbamazepine (Carbatrol®, Epitol®, Equetro®, Tegretol®) - clarithromycin (Biaxin®, Prevpac®) - clonazepam (Klonopin®) - clorazepate (Gen-xene®, Tranxene®) - colchicine (Colcrys®) - medicines that contain dexamethasone - diazepam (Valium®) - digoxin (Lanoxin®)

17

COMPLERA, EMTRIVA, GILEAD, the GILEAD Logo, GSI, HEPSERA, STRIBILD, the STRIBILD Logo, TRUVADA, and VIREAD are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. ATRIPLA is a trademark of Bristol-Myers Squibb & Gilead Sciences, LLC. All other marks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. © 2014 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. STBC0083 04/14

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

BS Page 2

PALIO Date: 4.7.14 • Client: Gilead • Product: Stribild • File Name: 16873_pgiqdp_J_Drew_BAY_TIMES_SF_fi.indd Ad Size: 9.75” x 16.0” (Non-Bleed Newspaper Ad)

Drew Bay Times-San Francisco

Two Wolves in the Heart Kim Corsaro Publisher 1981-2011

2261 Market Street, No. 309 San Francisco CA 94114 Phone: 415-601-2113 525 Bellevue Avenue Oakland CA 94610 Phone: 510-504-9255 E-mail: editor@sfbaytimes.com www.sfbaytimes.com

Examined Life The Bay Times was the first newspaper in California, and among the first in the world, to be jointly and equally produced by lesbians and gay men. We honor our history and the paper’s ability to build and strengthen unity in our community.

The Bay Times is proud to be the only 100% LGBT funded and owned newspaper for the LGBT community in San Francisco.

Dr. Betty L. Sullivan Jennifer L. Viegas Co-Publishers & Co-Editors

Abby Zimberg Design & Production Michael Zipkin Design & Production

Kate Laws Business Manager Robert Fuggiti Calendar Editor

Kit Kennedy Poet-In-Residence

Tom Moon, MFT There is a strange duality in human nature. As a species, we’re capable of deep love, compassion, and inspiring acts of self-sacrifice. But, as events like the Holocaust show, we’re also capable of limitless cruelty. One of the things that makes this possible, I believe, is our capacity to “otherize.”

History shows, and neuropsychological research confirms, that as soon as we place people outside of the circle of “us,” the brain automatically begins to devalue them and to justify bad treatment of them. Cruelty toward “them” becomes emotionally easier to tolerate, because we have less access to our empathy and compassion, and because we’re simultaneously

more inclined to suspicion, fear, and anger toward them.

within tribes. Tribalism is alive and well in the structure of our brains.

Why do we do it? Since otherizing lies at the root of virtually all of humanity’s most intractable problems—racism, sexism, homophobia, chauvinistic nationalism, religious bigotry, etc.— we’d obviously be better off without it. How, then, did it ever arise in the first place? Anthropology offers some important insights into this question.

While the capacity for otherizing is deeply ingrained, it’s also true that the more lately evolved structures of the brain can alter the behavior of the more primitive ones. Our unique capacities for self-awareness, self-reflection, and deliberate intention give us a unique capacity for freedom of action.

For several million years, our ancestors lived in hunter-gatherer tribes that typically had fewer than 150 members. They were threatened by predators, starvation, and disease, and had to compete with other tribes for scarce resources. In these harsh conditions, those who cooperated with others in their tribe typically lived longer and had more offspring, so natural selection favored the evolution of love, cooperation, empathy, loyalty, and fairness within tribes.

But those same evolutionary pressures also favored ruthless aggression toward members of competing tribes.

Cooperation and aggression evolved synergistically: tribes that were more cooperative were also more successfully aggressive, and aggression toward other tribes demanded cooperation

When we become aware that we are otherizing a person or a group, we can begin to activate self-ref lection by remembering the truth expressed in these famous words from Longfellow: “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

When we otherize we turn off the neural pathways mediating compassion and empathy. That may be why, if you try to incline your mind toward empathy for a despised other, you may be aware of tremendous resistance, sometimes rationalized by thoughts about how they don’t deserve it, or by the strange belief that to feel empathy for “bad” people somehow allows them to get away with something. But if you can see the humanity in the other, the intensity of otherizing automatically begins to diminish. This

has nothing to do with excusing bad behavior or condoning injustice. We can strongly condemn cruel actions while simultaneously remembering the humanity of the actor. Cultivating the habit of seeing “bad actors” as also “us” takes patience, but it can be done.

It is ironic that so many of us tenaciously cling to our habit of otherizing, because the more we strengthen positive and inclusive emotions, the happier we tend to be. That’s because all of the emotions connected with otherizing—contempt, hatred, vengefulness, fear, etc.—are unpleasant, while those connected with empathy and compassion are soothing, peaceful, and even joyful.

We cannot change our evolutionary history, but that same history has given us some capacity for choice. In his book Buddha’s Brain, neuropsychologist Rick Hanson tells the story of “…a Native American elder who was asked how she had become so wise, so happy, and so respected. She answered: ‘In my heart there are two wolves: a wolf of love and a wolf of hate. It all depends on which one I feed each day.’”

Tom Moon is a psychotherapist in San Francisco. For more information, please visit tommoon.net

J.H. Herren Technology Director Barbara Brust / Lucille Design

Sister Dana Sez: Words of Wisdumb from a Fun Nun

Technical Adviser

Jennifer Mullen Web Coordinator

Mario Ordonez Juan Ordonez Distribution

CONTRIBUTORS Writers Rink, Sister Dana Van Iquity, Ann Rostow, Kirsten Kruse, Kate Kendell, Pollo del Mar, Heidi Beeler, Gary M. Kramer, Dennis McMillan, Tom Moon, Paul E. Pratt, Terry Baum, Gypsy Love, Rafael Mandelman, Kit Kennedy, David Campos, Leslie Katz, Bill Lipsky, Karen Williams, Gary Virginia, Zoe Dunning, Jim Tibbs, Mark Penn, Marcy Adelman, Stuart Gaffney & John Lewis Brandon Miller & Joanne Jordan, Kippy Marks, Naomi Jay, Jamie Leno Zimron Thom Watson, America Foy, Philip Ruth, Courtney Lake, Michele Karlsberg Photographers Rink, Dennis McMillan, Steven Underhill, Phyllis Costa, Cathy Blackstone, Robert Fuggiti, Bill Wilson, Jo-Lynn Otto, Sandy Morris, Abby Zimberg

ADVERTISING Display Advertising Standard Rate Cards are available online at sfbaytimes.com or calling: 415-503-1375.

Custom ad sizes are available. Please inquire! The Bay Times reserves the right to reject any advertising at the discretion of the publishers.

National Advertising: Contact Bay Times / San Francisco. Also represented

by Rivendell Media., Mountainside, NJ 908-232-2021.

CALENDAR Event listings for consideration to be included in the Bay Times online or print Calendar section should be sent by e-mail to: calendar@sfbaytimes.com.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR If you would like to write a letter to the editor with comment on an article or suggestions for the Bay Times, email us at editor@sfbaytimes.com. © 2014 Bay Times Media Company Co-owned by Betty L. Sullivan & Jennifer L. Viegas Reprints by permission only.

18

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

By Sister Dana Van Iquity Sister Dana sez, “On July 4th, did everybuddy celebrate their independence from heterosexism?!”

Sooooooo, the SF Pride Parade happened, and that was way fantastic!

Sister Dana was the rainbow nun (wearing rainbow habit, rainbow veil, and every kind of rainbow necklace imaginable) standing high atop the Bay Times “Kiss Your Sweetie” bus - blowing kisses to the crowd, receiving some back, and flashing love and peace signs. Then it was the VIP party in the City Hall Rotunda in the Jazz Room starring Connie Champagne as Judy Garland doing her classics; Jason Brock singing his famous “Empire State of Mind” and other goodies; and DQ Daft-Nee Gesuntheit impersonating Barbra, Cher, and Liza - changing characters while sexy dancers Bobby Barnaby & Giamaica Zeidler entertained. WOWZERS! DAZZLE - BROADWAY... OUR WAY! was the Pride Concert from the sensational SFGAY MEN’S CHORUS, who sang songs from Avenue Q , Dreamgirls, Kinky Boots, Rent, The Sound of Music, South Pacific, Sunday in the Park with George, West Side Story, and more - but most with their own special queerifying touches (for instance, changing the revoltingly funny “Springtime for Hitler” into ‘Pridetime for Putin” along with gay goosestepping pink “soldiers” in leather shorts. Guest soprano, Tonywinning Laura Benanti treated us to “I’m Old Fashioned,” “Unusual Way” from Nine, (which she dueted on Broadway with Antonio Banderas), “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Model Behavior” from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (a model in Spain leaving increasingly faster and more desperate messages to her girlfriend back in the states), and

singing with SFGMC “Leap” from I Am Harvey Milk, which all of them sang at last year’s Pride Concert. Her singing is superb; but her witty patter is even better! The Chorus sang “If You Were Gay” (“but I’m not gay...”), “La Vie Boheme” from Rent, and “To Life” from Fiddler on the Roof. Lollipop Guild sang a very jittery “Coffee in a Cardboard Cup.” SFGMC performed a dramatic “Send in the Clowns” and also “Tonight” from West Side Story, closing out the first act with “Raise You Up” and “Just Be” from Kinky Boots, complete with a kinda kinky DQ chorus line.

Act Two opened with “Hello” from The Book of Mormon, featuring Vocal Minority and an Elder Price coming out gay. The Chorus changed into loud Hawaiian shirts and sailor caps for a “Suite from South Pacific,” with some rather freaky drag queens playing Honeybun and some hot guys in nuttin’ but towels doing “Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair.”

Sunday in the Park with George was dazzling with SFGMC’s new sparkly red ties. Dreamgirls’ “Steppin’ to the Bad Side” was especially “criminal” with the bad guys from SWAG singing. Bringing the mood down a bit was “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” (Les Miserables), “No One is Alone” (Into the Woods), and “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” (Phantom). Lightening the mood a bit was “Light” from Next to Normal. Bringing the show to a fabulous finish was Laura and everyone singing “Climb Every Mountain” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” A stellar show to be sure!

SF GIANTS LGBT NIGHT OUT at AT&T Park last Thursday started out really fun with the glorious SF Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band playing and the fabulous Cheer SF cheerleading in Seals Plaza at Marina Gate for the pre-party. They also played on the field, as did our Giants versus the Cincinnati Reds.

At the pre-party, some dude in a Reds jacket dared to show up. Did we beat him up? No! But we did give him a thoroughly queer booooo! On the big board at the top of the 5th inning scrolled: “Best of luck to all the SF athletes going to Gay Games in Au-

gust!” The score was 1-0 Reds. I was rather disappointed that on LGBT Night, the Kiss Cam showed NO queers smooching. Before the 7th inning stretch, it was Reds = 3, Giants= goose egg. We all sang along with the Band, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” At the bottom of the 8th, I didn’t feel much like singing along to “Don’t Stop Believin’” because frankly I was starting to stop believing. G-fans were bailing like rats from a sinking ship. Top of the 9th, and we could still do it. Nope. We lost 3 to 1.

But on the half-empty/half-full glass tip, at least it wasn’t a shut-out! And we did come home with way kewl “I rainbow-heart SF” souvenir drawstring backpacks! So not a total loss.

VEGAS IS OUT was a fun Pride party at Hotel Vitale put on by LasVegas.com and Stoli vodka, produced by the always clever Patrik Gallineaux. Naturally I wore my lucky rainbow dice necklace for the occasion. They served Moscow Mules in way kewl metal mugs and something called The Squeeze in rainbow color-changing martini glasses - both Stoli based. Best yet was the XLNT schwag they gave away, including a device you pressed, and a fan whirled to reveal changing circular rainbow neon colors. Also rainbow dog tags and key chains. I was totes rainbowed out!

It couldn’t possibly be Pride Weekend without the 16TH ANNUAL PRIDE BRUNCH (which raised over $42,000 for POSITIVE RESOURCE CENTER last year and even more for PRC this year) perpetually hosted by Gary Virginia & Donna Sachet at Hotel Whitcomb.

Senator Mark Leno, wear ing pink on Pink Saturday, spoke about the SF Compton Cafeteria Uprising back in 1966 for transgender rights.

We were entertained by the delightful Dixieland Dykes+3 and got up close and personal with the Grand Marshals. Author/activist Judy Grahn gave an incredible history of the Mattachine Society and read a riveting poem urging us to stay centered and keep redefining. Dr. Ted McIlvenna, (age 82) Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality president, said as a United Methodist

clergyman, he heard the voice of God “granting us 300 extra orgasms.”

Surprise guest Lea DeLaria, star of Orange is the New Black, did a hilarious stand-up routine as her old persona, Effin Dyke, back at her early days in ‘82 at the Valencia Rose. Veteran (literally from the military) trans activist Felicia Elizondo spoke how proud she was that the only transgender named after a street (at a celebration prior) was exquisite trans DQ Vicki Marlane whose street on 100 Turk is now “Vicki Mar Lane.” Elizondo introduced Jamie Wolfe, representing Organizational Grand Marshal Trans March, to speak about the successful March the day before. Comical talk show host Ross Mathews told DeLaria (regarding her OitNB character), “I will be your prison bitch any day, and my name will be MuffinTop!” Longtime trans activist (participated during the Stonewall Riots) Miss Major Griffin-Gracy swore like a sailor and encouraged us to keep up the fight! Housing rights activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca exhorted we need to stop the horrible Ellis Act evictions. Youngest ever Grand Marshall (16) trans teen Jewlyes Gutierrez spoke of her being bullied and wrongfully arrested in her Hercules, CA, school. Speaking for also wrongfully imprisoned Chelsea Manning, trans and peace activist, was Lauren McNamara, who said since Manning could not be here, we have to be her voice. South African attorney and global human rights advocate Melanie Nathan spoke passionately of the atrocities in Africa - especially Uganda and the “Kill the Gays” law.

Closing out the brunch was sensational Sachet singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with her special improvised lyrics.

T H E R IC H MO N D/ E R M E T A IDS FOUNDATION (R E A F) presented a delightful ONE NIGHT ONLY BENEFIT CABARET with company members from the national touring cast of ONCE at Club Fugazi and special guest stars: David Burnham & Mark Vogel dueted “Because I Knew You” from Wicked and Vogel played keyboards for Burnham’s (continued on page 26)

Fortnight in Review

By Ann Rostow Utah King To Me! My last column ended with a bang.

No sooner had I filed the tedious accounting of GLBT civil rights news dribs and drabs than came news of marriage rights being granted by a federal judge in Indiana. With the help of the intrepid editors at the Bay Times, we added a little editorial note, and then five minutes later, Kaboom!

A split 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled in our favor in the Utah marriage case, the first of its kind to make its way through the federal appellate courts, one rung down from You Know Who. (I am not counting the anomalous Prop 8 ruling in the Ninth Circuit.)

In the two weeks that followed, we’ve witnessed the now familiar chaos of a marriage window in Hoosierland, a window that was slowly shut by successive legal maneuvers. You can’t get married in Indiana at the moment, but quite a few couples managed to tie the knot before the opening closed.

Indiana is part of the Seventh Circuit, so this case will join, or let’s say accompany, Wisconsin on its trip up the judicial ladder.

Also, let’s note that the Oklahoma marriage case was argued only a week after the Utah case, and before the same three-judge panel that just ruled in our favor. So where is that decision, we may ask? I vaguely recall that the Oklahoma case has some procedural complications, so maybe that accounts for the delay. But I actually suspect that the Tenth Circuit is waiting for me to file this column. Then, after about ten minutes, the panel will rub their hands together. “She’s all finished! Release it now!”

Alito Makes Scalia Look Good Meanwhile, the main story for this column has to be t he Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby opinion, and the related move by the court to issue an injunction in favor of the conservative Wheaton College.

You know, readers. I’ve been following this case. I’ve followed a lot of cases that attempt to resolve the tension between religious freedom and civil rights. But down comes this major opinion at a time when I am on vacation, moving seamlessly between grandchildren playtime and drunken partying with their parents.

Oh! I’ll just read that Hobby Lobby opinion. But wait. Here’s a naked four-year-old who wants to go on a jet ski! And I have to tell a story.

And we need to find a juice box. And now there are tears! Accusations! She scratched me on purpose! Yet there is no mark. Where are their parents?

And later when the kids are sleeping. Who wants a cherry margarita?

Who’s going star gazing on the lake?

Here’s a giant bottle of wine being passed around the fire. Does anyone want to stop to read the Supreme Court opinion? I think not.

But I wasn’t worried. I’ve covered this area of law for twenty years. I’m no lawyer, but certainly, once vacation is done, I can read an opinion and some commentary and form my own trenchant analysis, right?

Wrong.

As I write to you, I have indeed read the opinion and the dissent, along with a bunch of other articles. It’s the job of a Supreme Court analyst to come up with the implications, superficial and profound, of every decision. But although I’ve often tried to be one, I’m not really a Supreme Court analyst, so I can tell you this: this opinion is an enigma. We have 19

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

no way to know whether the decision is, in Justice Kennedy’s opinion, a narrow interpretation of a federal statute. Or whether, in Justice Ginsburg’s opinion, it’s a break down in First Amendment jurisprudence. We just don’t know. It could be either.

The opinion (which I’ll get to) was written by the man that I consider to be one of the very worst justices in High Court history. Samuel Alito is not just conservative; he operates outside the restraints of constitutional law itself. He makes stuff up. He twists stuff. He simply ignores important legal tests. He picks a decision and then backs it up with whatever complete b.s. sounds like it might make sense.

He has done this before (check out his dissent in the Hastings Law School case), he has done it here, and he will no doubt do it again.

So let’s look at the Hobby Lobby case.

It’s complicated to the max. As you know, Hobby Lobby is a private forprofit company that is run by conservative Christians. The owners did not want to fund insurance for four types of contraception that they considered were virtually the same as abortion: Plan B, IUDs, and two other things.

Under Obamacare, employers must provide full coverage for women’s health. Religious employers, and we’re talking churches and so forth, can avoid the problem of providing these contraceptives by filling out a form and ordering a third party to offer the insurance. That way, the employees get the same benefits as any other woman, but the religious group can avoid paying for the insurance directly.

So, we’re looking at two main issues: Should a for-prof it corporation be treated like a church group simply because the owners are religious? After all, the employees are presumably just regular people, right? Second, you’re probably thinking that we’re also talking about the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of religious expression. To what extent can the government stand between you and your experience of faith?

But here’s the thing. Justice Alito ignored the First Amendment. There’s a 1993 federal law that says the government cannot trespass on expressions of faith absent a compelling federal interest. If they so do, they also have to prove that there was no less intrusive manner of serving that interest.

This law is the much ballyhooed federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law that was actually passed to clarify, and in some ways strengthen, the First Amendment’s guarantee that the government will not favor or intervene in religious expression. In other words, the federal law serves the First Amendment, but it does not replace it. And the Supreme Court carries vast First Amendment case law that should, in theory, govern this case.

Astonishingly, because we’re dealing with Justice Outside the Box Alito, the Hobby Lobby complaint was analyzed under the federal statute, not under Constitutional law. Hey! We don’t have to be lawyers to know that federal statutes, all statutes, must measure up to the Constitution, right?

That’s the whole damned purpose of the Supreme Court! But this was not done! Instead, Alito looked at the language of the RFRA (and its progeny) and determined, f irst that this law somehow stands on its own outside the ambit of the First Amendment.

(WTF?). Then, he ruled that a private for-profit company could have a religious conviction for purposes of the law, and third, he decided that the government had not selected the least intrusive method for serving its interest in women’s health.

Professional Services I’m not getting into the origins of the RFRA, but just trust me. This law was passed in order to codify aspects of First Amendment law, not to trump established case law. The RFR A should be interpreted in the context of the Constitution, not on its own. To do otherwise is typical Alito, and his indifference to established constitutional law is unforgivable in a justice.

Second, is there a legal difference between a corporation, even a corporation run by Christians, and a church organization? Hello! Do we even have to ask that question? Yet Alito had no problem conf lating a for-prof it group with a religious organization.

Why, he wondered blithely, should participation in the free market negate the owners’ faith-based rights?

(Earth to Alito: because you can’t have it both ways! You can’t get the benefits of separating your personal finances from your corporation and then turn around and invoke your personal beliefs to evade federal law.)

But following his skewed thinking, why shouldn’t the majority owner of a traded company be allowed to dictate religious terms? Couldn’t we see major corporations sidestepping all sorts of antidiscrimination laws with a wave of the religion card? If it’s up to Alito, no problem!

Finally, he turned to the question of whether the government had used the least intrusive means of enforcing its insurance policy. Hey, Alito said. You’ve got all these religious groups who can fill out a form and get someone else to provide contraceptive insurance.

Surely this same accommodation can be made for Hobby Lobby and other “closely held” private companies who hold these “sincere” beliefs.

Now, bear with me. Forget the fact that women who work for seemingly secular companies should not be obliged to jump through strange insurance hoops in order to get standard health care. But there’s also a question of whether this “easy alternative” will even be available. Why? Because a bunch of the aforementioned religious groups have decided that even filling out the damn form is a violation of their freedom of religion, or sincerely held beliefs, or whatever b.s. And just a few days after Hobby Lobby, the High Court issued an injunction that allows a Christian college, Wheaton, to skip the form and just write a letter to the government.

Personally, I think this Wheaton decision, which got a ton of media attention for a range of legal reasons, is a red herring. Because it’s more of the same. The insurance. The form.

These people won’t stop. Anything and everything will be a violation of their beliefs until someone, or some court, steps up and points out that one of our most fundamental principles as a nation is that freedom of religion does not extend to imposing your religious beliefs on other Americans.

Will Hobby Lobby Hurt Us? Even after all this, I still can’t predict how this opinion will play out. On the surface, we can imagine nightmare scenarios. And even though Alito pretends to operate outside the First Amendment, we know this opinion will have an impact on constitutional law. Could a company fire a gay person or ignore a legal marriage based on Hobby Lobby? Maybe, maybe not.

On the other hand, is it too weird?

Has Alito gone too far? Will future courts be able to sidestep Hobby Lobby, noting that it was confined to a niche aspect of health care or that it ignored First Amendment precedent?

Will it just create a murky area of law, a swamp to be drained by a future (continued on page 26)

• • • • • • • •

Read more @www.sfbaytimes.com and check us out on Twitter and Facebook.

#KateClinton2014

“When POC use marijuana it’s criminal, but when we white people do it’s medicinal.”

Arts & Entertainment Summer Festival Time!

Here is a sampling of just some of the many LGBT summer events and festivals happening over the next couple of months.

Wednesday, July 30– Monday, August 4 Lazy Bear Weekend Guerneville, CA. For men 21 and over. Ticket price: $150. http://www. lazybearweekend.com/main_menu. htm

Friday, July 18 Rock Wall Wine Pride Prom 8-11pm, Alameda. General admission: $20/$25 door. 21+. http://www. rockwallwines.com/events Rock Wall Wines presents an 80s themed Pr ide Prom celebrat ing equality and love, featuring dance music by DJ Hella Good and more fun with the Pride Prom photo booth.

The Prom Queen and King will be selected in a dance contest. Period attire is encouraged. Drag performances by Miss Charles Clamson and Dulce De Leche plus custom poems by the Poetry Store.

Wednesday, July 23– Sunday, July 27 OLAC 25th Anniversary Conference “Lesbian Activism Changing the World” Oakand. Full registration: $350. http://www.oloc.org Featuring Chrystos, Cherrie Moraga and Dorothy Allison, the conference celebrates the organization’s 25 years of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLAC). The event includes workshops, caucuses, an intergenerational panel, writers’ night, live auction with Alix Dobkin, lesbian tent revival, a pre-conference intensive “The Roots of Our Feminisms, and more.

This is the 18th Lazy Bear Weekend, the “biggest, hairiest, beefiest, burliest, craziest, laziest FUNdraising event on the planet.” DJ’s, pool parties, a wine tour, “bears in the woods,” movies, “UnderBear Party,” golf, ice cream social, live hosted stage shows and more await. If you’re a bear or a lover of bears, this is definitely the place to be.

Camp Round Meadow, Angelus Oaks, CA. $150. http://www. calcommen.com/#!get_involved/ c1yzj

Tuesday, August 5–Sunday, August 10 Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival Varying ticket levels. http://www.michfest.com Since 1976, this annual feminist music festival has been “the original womyn’s Woodstock” held in a small wooded area in northern Oceana County, Michigan. The event is completely built, staffed, run and attended by women. It features workshops, vendors and exhibits. Headliners include Cris Williamson, Linda Tillery, Barbara Higbie, Bay Times columnist Karen Williams, Toshi Reagon, Elvira Kurt and many more.

The California Community of Men (CalComMen), closely aligned with the Billys and the global Radical Faeries, is a new peer-led community of heart-centered, passionate and caring men who create spiritual and social events, as well as weekend celebrations. This summer camping weekend offers participants a chance to get totally “off-the-grid” together, at a 40acre camp set in the woods, 6000 feet up in the San Bernardino mountains, with lazy warm days among the ancient, towering pines, and clean crisp nights filled with hundreds of stars.

K aleidoscope: The Colorful Patterns of Men

11am-6pm, Dore Alley, SF. 18 and over. Free admission, but a $10 or more donation to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at the gates gets you $2 off each beverage purchased at a Folsom Street Events beverage booth. http://www.folsomstreetevents.org/upyouralley/

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

Women’s Weekend 2.0 is the reinvention of the classic lesbian music and comedy festival that has been happening annually on the Russian River (70 miles north of San Francisco) since 1986. The overall theme of the festival is “Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty.” Produced by She She Classy Fun for Wiser Women, this is a new event created by Carmen McKay, one of the original founders of Russian River Women’s Weekend and her partner. Headliners performing at the Monte Rio Amphitheater include Suzanne Westenhoefer, Julie Goldman, Beverly McClellan, Bad Ass Boots, Azucar Con Ache, Tori Roze, Average Dyke Band, Steph Johnson and more. Activities include golf, wine tasting, single’s mixers, crafts, color drop, flash mob and more.

Sunday, August 31

Sunday, September 21

Oakland Pride Parade + Festival

Folsom Street Fair

Oakland, CA. Parade: 10am, Festival: 10:30am. http://www.oaklandpride.nationbuilder.com Located on Telegraph between 48th and 51st Streets, Oakland Pride includes multiple music stages as well as exhibit and vendor booths. Oakland Pride was revitalized in 2009 with the mission of celebrating the diversity of the LGBTQ community in Oakland and the East Bay. Activities for families with children are included. This event is known for being “not too big to enjoy!” But the popular featured musicians, great food, good vibes and more warrant a special trip from other parts of the Bay Area. A BART stop is just steps away and there is street parking, with multiple parking lots also available. We know our community is well represented in Oakland, with the nation’s largest lesbian population residing there, as well as numerous other LGBT individuals and families. Come out and support this fun community event.

Friday, August 29th– Monday, September 1

Up Your Alley

20

in the shady Kaleidorific Zen-Zone or getting a groove on in The Rumpus Room. Have a snack in the 24/7 Café yo Mama and hang around in the HANG OUT Lounge and meet other men. The event is held in a beautiful, serene setting that is drug and alcoholfree. A swimming pool and massage cabin are at the site.

Friday, August 22–Sunday, August 24 CalComMen Community Camp

Sunday, July 27

Organizers say Up Your Alley “is only for real players and not for the faint of heart, where leather daddies rule the streets of San Francisco’s South of Market district. Of course, if rubber, sportswear, biker gear, skinheads, punks, or any variety of built, hairy men turns you on, then we’ve got it.” S&M prevails at over 50 adult vendor spaces.

Check out this new LGBT music festival featuring top talent, including Mary Lambert, Mx. Justin Vivian Bond, Cris Williamson, Marga Gomez, Matt Alber, Vicki Randle, Page Hodel and many more. In addition to live music, DJs and dancing, activities in the beautiful rustic setting include hiking, swimming in the crystalclear large swimming pool, soaking in the 19th-century mineral pool or hot pool, labyrinth walks, and stargazing. The festival benefits ORAM (Organization for Refuge Asylum & Migration) and other non-profits providing legal assistance to international LGBTQ community members seeking asylum.

Santa Rosa, CA. Registration: $239-$399 with some financial aid available. http://www.thecmg.org/ V5/summer.asp

Wednesday, August 20– Sunday, August 24 Luscious Queer Music Festival Saratoga Springs, CA. Varying ticket levels. http://lusciousqueermusicfestival.org/

Kaleidoscope, a California Men’s gathering on Labor Day weekend, brings participants together to acknowledge and experience individuality and uniqueness. The event in past years has drawn around 200 men, many of whom are LGBT. Anyone who identifies as male, ages 18–80+, is welcome. Organizers encourage attendees to stretch boundaries in fun ways, such as by cutting loose in the audition-free Talent/No Talent show, dancing at the Funky Groovadelic Boogie, mellowing out

Friday, September 12– Sunday, September 14 Women’s Weekend Reinvented 2.0 Russian River, Guerneville, CA. 21+. http://www.womensweekend2. com

Folsom Street from 8th to 13th, San Francisco. 18 and over. http:// www.folsomstreetevents.org/folsomstreetfair/ The city’s annual event for leather and fetish enthusiast, Folsom Street Fair attracts around 400,000 attendees. The fair, which is spread out over 13 city blocks, features booths, a massive live stage with top-name indie acts, public play stations, two dance areas, an erotic artists’ area and much more.

Thursday, September 25 – Sunday, September 28 Fabulosa Spinning Wheel, Yosemite, CA. Early Bird discounted rate until 8/15. http://www.fabulosa.org Fabulosa is an inclusive, feminist fundraising gathering for women, their families, and friends of all genders.

Women produce this annual festival of music, film, crafts, health training and other workshops. For 2014, Fabulosa introduces a breathtakingly beautiful new location near Yosemite that features a waterfall, a gorgeous pool, swimming holes and trees and f lowers galore. Headliners include Bad Ass Boots, Average Dyke Band, Tru Bloo & Wanda Kruda, Anita Lofton Project, Hearts of Animals, DJ Chelsea Star and more. Film schedule will be announced soon. Sponsored

by El Rio.

Proud Old Lesbians To Gather in Oakland

By Susan Chacin and Elana Dykewomon

PHOTOS COURTESY OF OLOC

Proud to be old? Yes! Old Lesbians Organizing for Change started in the Bay Area 25 years ago—Old Lesbians and proud of it! OLOC is now a national force, with 17 regional chapters across the US. This July 2327, 2014, OLOC’s national gathering, “Lesbian Activism Changing the World,” celebrates its 25th anniversary at the Marriott in Oakland.

Women are coming from as far as Australia to soak up the pride. OLOC invites Lesbians 59 and older—and their partners and/or caregivers of any age—to confront the social bias that renders us invisible, the internalized ageism that diminishes us, and the intersections of multiple oppressions that we can dismantle together.

Keynote addresses will be delivered

by Chrystos, Cherríe Moraga and Dorothy Allison—inspiring activists in anti-racist, feminist and economic justice movements (as well as dynamite writers) for the last thirty-five years.

Women of all ages are invited to some Gathering events: an Intergenerational Panel chaired by Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project Managing Director, T. Kebo Drew, Thursday afternoon, July 24. Younger women are also invited to evening events including a stellar Writers’ Night on Thursday, which will include a Tribute to Pat Parker with Vicki Randle, Linda Tillery, Anita Lofton, Arisa White and Indira Allegra, as well as ten legendary writer-activists. And the legends keep coming with a Saturday night dance featuring the Bay Area Lesbian Legends Boogie Band in a one-time only appearance. You won’t want to miss any of these historic events!

of Color space will also be available throughout the gathering. Other plenaries will deal with class, discuss gathering oral herstories of Old Lesbians, and honor OLOC’s founders.

Some 50 workshops on a variety of topics are listed at www.oloc.org.

Our generation coined: “We Are Everywhere!” We rallied against homophobia, defended Lesbian mothers, demanded reproductive rights, marched for safety from assault, and created a women’s culture. We are at it again. We are giving increasing priority to keeping ourselves healthy, and finding mutual support for aging

On Saturday morning, July 26, a plenary panel of Lesbians of Color will speak of their experiences. A Lesbian

in a hostile, racist, capitalist environment. We stand in defense of Social Security, voting rights and peace. On Thursday, July 24, gathering participants will be demonstrating against banking crimes at the nearby Bank of America on Broadway.

A third of those at the gathering are receiving f inancial support. While the deadline for financial assistance has passed, registration is available for program segments for those unable to attend the entire gathering.

Disability access is also a priority: some 30 scooters and wheelchairs will be rolling around and we are urging all participants not to wear scents. All plenary sessions will be open-captioned and assistive hearing devices are available. Donations are urgently needed to cover expenses, and inkind items for live and silent auctions are also very welcome. Don’t miss the live auction with Alix Dobkin at the Saturday night dance!

Find all the details at www.oloc.org Spread the word, and join us!

Susan Chacin

g for Chang e zin ni

LESBIAN ACTIVISM CHANGING THE WORLD

esbians Org

a

Elana Dykewomon

Susan Chacin and Elana Dykewomon are both noted lesbian activists, authors, and teachers. For more information about Dykewomon’s work, please visit http://www. dykewomon.org/

dL

2014 OLOC National Gathering

Ol

OLOC CELEBRATES 25 YEARS! Join us in the San Francisco Bay Area City of Oakland, California Oakland Marriott Hotel & Convention Center (in downtown Oakland)

Wednesday, July 23rd - Sunday, July 27th, 2014 Featuring: Dorothy Allison

Chrystos

Cherríe Moraga

• Dance with the Bay Area Lesbian Legends Boogie Band • The Lesbian Tent Revival with Sister Carolyn Gage • Pre-Gathering intensive on the Roots of Our Feminisms • Workshops • Caucuses • Intergenerational Panel • Writers' Night • Live auction with Alix Dobkin & MORE

Old Lesbians Organizing for Change PO Box 5853 • Athens, Ohio 45701 Phone: 888-706-7506 Email: info@oloc.org www.oloc.org

OLOC commits to women's liberation, racial and class equality, and providing mobility, hearing, vision, and scent-free accessibility.

21

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

More News, Stories, and Arts & Entertainment online @sfbaytimes.com

Virginia Woolf: Lyricist of Feminism John Maynard Keynes and artist Duncan Grant, who were lovers; novelist E. M. Forster, open to close friends, closeted to everyone else; art critic Clive Bell; artist Roger Fry, for whom Vanessa left Bell before leaving him for Grant; writer Lytton Strachey, openly homosexual; and Leonard Woolf, whom she would wed in 1912.

Rainbow Honor Walk Dr. Bill Lipsky In the fading days of Edwardian England, a circle of artists and authors, soon to be known as the Bloomsbury Group, became famous for a practical joke. Dressed as a delegation of Abyssinian dignitaries, they deceived the English Royal Navy into giving them a red carpet tour of the HMS Dreadnought, flagship of the British home fleet, then docked at Weymouth. When their ruse was exposed, newspapers all over the Un ited K ingdom publ ished photographs of them in full disguise.

Among the group was Adeline Virginia Stephen, disguised as a bearded man.

Virginia and Leonard Woolf remained married and affectionate until she died on March 28, 1941; in a 1937 diary entry she noted, “Lovemaking—after 25 years can’t bear to be separate…And our marriage so complete.” Even so, she was intimate with women throughout her life. Her deepest relationship was with Vita Sackville-West, whom Woolf felt was “a real woman. Then there is some voluptuousness about her; the grapes are ripe; and not reflective.” Both avoided categorizing their relationship as lesbian. Vita preferred being known as a “Sapphist” and Woolf “wanted to avoid all categories,” especially one defined by sexual behavior.

Actually, she was expressing the reality of almost all women: their minority status; their poverty and lack of privacy; their lack of access to education, freedom of movement and intellectual and sexual expression; and the gender and sexual identities forced upon them by society. In To the Lighthouse (1927), she raised the additional issue of a woman’s inequality within her marriage. She also wrote extensively on women’s exclusion from careers in academia,

It would not be the last time that the woman who became Virginia Woolf crossed the barriers of convention or gender conformity. All her life, she continued to shock the public about “the state of being male or female” and the social and cultural roles dictated by sexual patriarchy. Born into a family of eminent Victorians on January 25, 1882, Woolf grew up in a world where a woman’s place was in the home. She essentially raised and educated herself, reading through her father’s “large and unexpurgated library.” Because he was a founding editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, she met many of the leaders of Victorian literary society, who inspired her at an early age to become a writer.

In 1911, the author, yet unpublished, moved into a house in Bloomsbury, a neighborhood near the British Museum, with her brother Adrian and sister Vanessa. Relatives and friends, who found her lifestyle too Bohemian and unconventional, were scandalized, especially when the home became the center of a group of intellectuals that included economist

Beginning with The Voyage Out (1915), her first published work, Woolf experimented with new literary devices, including unusual narrative perspectives and free association. In Mrs. Dalloway (1925), her fourth work of fiction, she used original novelistic structures to blur the line between dream and reality, flowing from the conscious to the unconscious, from the imagined to the real, and from the past to the present. Many consider the book—which raised issues of feminism, female stereotyping, sexual and economic repression, mental illness, and homosexuality—one of the most important written in the last hundred years.

A Room of One’s Own (1929), her extended essay about the impact of sexism on creativity, was the first major feminist critique. Why had so few female writers produced authentic works of genius, she asked, famously answering, “A woman must have £500 a year and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” At a time when the average household income in Britain was £165 and a typical home was five rooms, many criticized Woolf for seeming to be concerned only with the small group of British women who, in fact, could have a room of their own and time to use it.

22

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

the church, law, and medicine, later expanding her feminist critique to include patriarchy and militarism.

“Language is wine upon the lips,” she said, but it was much more than that for her. She became a major innovator in using words to share her “extraord inar y insights into consciousness and the darkness just outside its limits.” With intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity, her nonlinear, free form prose style created worlds that deconstructed and penetrated human thought processes and experience.

More than anything else, she showed us our own nature and complexities, that “behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that…all human beings (are) connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art…We are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.” With “her singleness of vision and in her handling of words,” she created an extraordinary oeuvre to be read for “the rarest qualities of imagination, insight, and judgment.”

Bill Lipsky, Ph.D., author of “Gay and Lesbian San Francisco” (2006), is a member of the Rainbow Honor Walk board of directors.

Seductive Venus in Fur Plays with Reality and Perception parallel on/off stage drama as well as with the characters blurring the lines between script, stage, and screen.

Film Gary Kramer Roman Polanski’s Venus in Fur, opening Friday at the Landmark theaters in San Francisco and Berkeley, unfolds almost entirely inside a theater in Paris. An adaptation of David Ives’ play (adapted from the Leopold von Sacher-Masoch novel), the film is a nifty two-hander in which Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner, Polanski’s reallife wife) arrives late to an audition with the harried Thomas (Mathieu Amalric, who is made up to resemble Polanski here). She has a broken heel, and is dripping wet. Cursing her bad luck, she just wants a chance to perform. Thomas has had a bad day too, having seen a series of inappropriate actresses for the part of Vanda in the play. He is tired and frustrated, and just wants to go home and have dinner with his fiancée.

Venus in Fur plays with reality and perception as Vanda and Thomas engage in a pas de deux of sorts. They irk each other at first. She wonders if the play is based on the Lou Reed song. Thomas informs the actress that he is looking for someone different for the part.

However, the director reluctantly agrees to audition the actress Vanda for the role of her namesake. She, it seems, is also auditioning him.

These elements provide the film with its pleasures, and the performances are terrific as well. Seigner strikes all the right notes as her character moves from innocent to experienced, and reveals late in the film that Vanda may be giving an entirely different performance. Amalric exhibits considerable control in his role that benefits the film immensely. As Thomas absorbs Vanda’s behavior, Amalric’s body language deftly conveys his characters’ emotional reactions. For example, his eyes, when he reacts to Vanda knowing the script by heart, speak volumes.

Venus in Fur cleverly has the performers break character from time to time to keep the play within the film from getting too arduous. Thomas answers his cell phone periodically, or Vanda stops her audition to query Thomas on the meaning of the text he adapted—as if getting him to justify some artistic decision. These shrewd moments, such as a debate the actress and her director have about the sexism of the play, keep this talky film from being too stagy. This narrative strategy also allows for some fun reversal of roles, as when Vanda “analyzes” Thomas, who is lying on the divan her character was resting on a few scenes earlier.

However, sometimes the deeper meanings are not very deep. Venus in Fur mentions pleasure and pain, perversion and passion, but there is really

little exhibition of anything particularly pleasurable, painful, perverse or passionate. This may be the film’s point—that one has to imagine such things—but an early speech Thomas has about his aunt striking his naked buttocks with a cane as punishment is much more intense, erotic, and palpable than what is shown or discussed later in the film as the story reaches its climax. When Vanda has Thomas don lipstick, heels, and a dog collar, he never seems to be doing anything more than submitting to the role.

Far more interesting to consider is the shift in the balance of power between the two characters that seesaws throughout Venus in Fur. Who has the upper hand, and for how long, becomes the tension that percolates throughout the film, and Polanski, making a comment on the battle of the sexes here, certainly makes it clear who is the hammer and who is the anvil. When Vanda teases Thomas about his stage character’s interest in an attractive Greek man, she suggests a latent homosexual tendency. Her verbal emasculating of him here only reinforces her physically putting him in drag. Whether Thomas enjoys surrendering control to Vanda is open to debate, but it does provide one of the more interesting facets of Venus in Fur. © 2014 Gary M. Kramer Gary M. Kramer is the author of “Independent Queer Cinema: Reviews and Interviews,” and the co-editor of “Directory of World Cinema: Argentina.” You can follow him on Twitter @garymkramer

When the pair read the first three pages of the script, both Vanda and Thomas start to reveal their true characters. She has a surprising alacrity for the material; he responds keenly to her suggestion that he costar in the production. Their back and forth is amusing and seductive.

Viewers will become invested in the play and the film, caught up in the

Writing = Challenges

Words Michele Karlsberg Michele Karlberg: Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

Pamela Sneed: For myself and many writers, the challenge is going deeper into our work, getting beyond the first and second draft of a piece and exposing its core truth, purest language, or that place where the work just sings and sings. It’s difficult because, as humans, we like to be in control rather than delve down into that place where we feel exposed and vulnerable. Inside of each work is an explosion; I work to find it and let it out.

23

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

When working, sometimes I ask myself what am I hiding or afraid to say and have I written it? That’s where the work is dangerous and exciting.

The other challenging element of writing is time and how to balance having a social life and work life with a writing life. I always tell people, “Don’t wait for time to write because it rarely comes.” You have to do it however you can, wherever you can, for whatever amount of time you can. An artist I know said recently, “Make it happen by any means necessary.”

The same goes for getting the work out there. A lot of us are waiting for some big break, and while that happens for some, in reality we have to make it happen for ourselves, to push to get our work out there, to be as brave and as bold as we can, by getting it out to agents or by self-publishing.

(Pamela Sneed is a New York based poet, writer and actress. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery (Henry Holt, 1998) and KONG And Other Works (Vintage Entity Press, 2009). Her amazing and empowering chapbook called Lincoln (Imagine Productions) was just released. Her recent publications include work in Best Monologues from Best American Short Plays, Future Perfect, and LIU Teaching Narratives with upcoming work in Ping Pong Magazine

and Cutbank Magazine.)

Joan Opyr: I’m not a visual writer because I’m not a visual thinker. It might have something to do with being terribly nearsighted—I’ve always been an aural learner. I find writing descriptive passages challenging because I don’t much care what characters look like, what brand of sneakers they’re wearing, or what kinds of plants they have growing in their gardens.

When I’m reading, and the author has a character stand in front of a mirror and assess herself from head to toe, my eyes tend to roll back in my head.

Some readers like those descriptions.

They want to know those things. I don’t. I’m interested in interactions and conversations. I don’t write what I see; I write what I hear. When I’m drafting a story, I hear the characters talking to one another. I’m not saying that I hear voices—well, I am, but they’re voices of my own creation.

I don’t hear the voice of God telling me to stick a sparkler in my ass and walk naked down Main Street. The voices I hear belong to my characters, and I only hear them after I have a good idea for a plot and am well into my (continued on page 26)

Absol utely Fabulous Tours

B ook a W in e T our N ow!

LGBT Owned 100% customizable Group/Private Tours

707-320-8043 Serving the LGBT community and their allies sue@absolutelyfabuloustours.com www.absolutelyfabuloustours.com

See many more Calendar items @ www.sfbaytimes.com

compiled by Robert Fuggiti

Arrival: The Music of ABBA comes to Davies Symphony Hall on July 22.

Gym Class – Hi Tops. Free. 10 pm. (2247 Market St.) www. hitopssf.com. Enjoy a night of fun at Castro’s only gay sports bar.

Monster Show – The Edge SF. Free. 10 pm. (4149 18th St.) www. qbarsf.com/edge. Cookie Dough hosts an unpredictable cast.

Men at Twerk – Beaux. Free. 9 pm. (2344 Market St.) www. beauxsf.com. Hiphop meets house music at this weekly party.

Highway 1, Point Reyes Station) www.ptreyesbooks.com. Interfaith minister Elizabeth River leads a book study based on Angeles Arrien’s book, The Second Half of Life: Opening the Eight Gates of Widsom.

Book Study: The Second Half of Life - Point Reyes Presbyterian Church. Donation based. 1 pm to 3 pm. (11445

New Order – Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. $55-$75. 8 pm. (99 Grove St.) www.apecononcerts. com. New Order comes to San Francisco for one night only with a special opening by La Roux.

Firebird – Marines’ Memorial Theatre. $35+. 8 pm. The Man Dance Company presents a world premiere performance of Firebird.

Radical Women – New Valencia Hall. Free. 12 pm to 1:30 pm. (747 Polk St.) www.radicalwomen.org.

Join in a discussion for a crash course in socialist feminism.

Castro Valley Pride – Free. 12 pm to 5 pm. (Castro Valley High School Stadium Parking Lot) www. facebook.com/CVPride. Celebrate the Castro Valley LGBT community with a beautiful day in the sun, listening to great music and enjoying delicious food.

Evolution – Beatbox. $15-$25. 10 pm to 6 am. (314 11th St.) www. beatboxsf.com. Celebrate the two year anniversary of Evolution with extended hours to dance the night away.

Glamazone – The Café. Free. 9 pm to 2 am. (2369 Market St.) www.cafesf.com. Enjoy drink specials during the day and drag performances through the evening.

24

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

Beer Bust – 440. $8. 3 pm to 8 pm. (440 Castro St.) www.the440. com. Drink or bust!

Salsa Sundays – El Rio. $10. 3 pm to 8 pm. (3158 Mission St.) www.elriosf.com. Enjoy live music and dancing every second and fourth Sunday.

Wanted – Q Bar. Free. 10 pm to 2 am. (456 Castro St.) www.sfwanted.com. Enjoy a night of dance and electronic music along with $2 drink specials.

Mahogany Mondays – Midnight Sun. Free. 8 pm. (4067 18th St.) www.midnightsunsf.com.

A live drag variety show with $5 drink specials all evening.

Motown Monday – Madrone Art Bar. Free. 6 pm. (500 Divisadero St.) www.madroneartbar.com.

Dance the night away to favorite Motown songs and remixes.

Beach Blanket Babylon – Club Fugazi. $25-$130. 8 pm. (678 Green St.) www.beachblanketbabylon.com.

Enjoy Steve Silver’s famous musical revue packed with hilarious pop culture and political antics.

Block Party – Midnight Sun. Free. 9 pm. (4067 18th St.) www. midnightsunsf.com. Enjoy weekly screenings of your favorite music videos.

Video Tuesdays – Lookout.

Free. 8 pm. (2600 16th St.) www. lookoutsf.com. VJ 6PAC plays the best in music videos every Tuesday.

Last Drag – SF LGBT Community Center. Free. 7 pm to 9 pm. (1800 Market St.) www.lastdrag.com. A free quit smoking class for LGBT and HIV positive people.

Trivia with Miss Kitty – Wild Side West. Free. 7 pm (424 Cortland Ave.) www.wildsidewest.com. A weekly trivia with fun prizes and free to play.

Smack Dab Open Mic Night – Magnet. Free. 8 pm. (4122 18th St.) www.magnetsf.org. An open mic night for all with host LarryBob Roberts.

Stand Up for Campos – El Rio. $7-$100. 7 pm. (3158 Mission St.) www.davidcampossf.com. A comedy and music fundraiser for David Campos for Assembly.

Nightlife – California Academy of Sciences. $12. 6 pm to 10 pm. (55 Music Concourse Dr.) www.noisepop.com. Enjoy a fun evening of science, cocktails and live music.

80’s Night – Cat Club. $6. 9 pm to 3 am. (1190 Folsom St.) www. sfcatclub.com. Serving up drink specials and classic 80’s hits all night long.

Hick: A Love Story – Eureka Theatre. Enjoy a remarkable and unexpected love story based on actual events and artifacts from Lorena Hickok and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s relationship.

Hardbox – Powerhouse. $10. 9 pm to 2 am. (1347 Folsom St.)

www.powerhouse-sf.com. A monthly party with hot go-go studs, strong drinks and boxing contest.

Bisexual Discussion Group – LGBT Community Center. Free.

(1800 Market St.) www.sfcenter. org. A peer-led support group for bisexual individuals.

Vocal Workshop – California Jazz Conservatory. $200. 10 am to 4 pm. (2087 Addison St., Berkeley) www.jazzschool.org. A two day vocal intensive class taught by Jazz vocalist, Ellen Robinson.

Estate Planning Tools – The Beck Law Group. Free. 6 pm to 7:30 pm. (7 Joost Avenue) www. becklawgroup.com. Learn all the important points from Basics of Living Trusts and Beyond Living Trusts program.

Club Rimshot – Bench and Bar. $5. 9 pm. (510 17th St.) www. bench-and-bar.com. A weekly LGBT hio hop and R&B night with resident DJs Rum, DJ Chris and DJ Olga.

Karaoke Mondays – Lookout.

Free. 8 pm to 1 am. (2600 16th St.) www.lookoutsf.com. KJ Paul hosts a weekly karaoke night.

LGBTQ Support Group – Petaluma Health Center. Free. 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm. (1179 N. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma) www.phealthcenter.org. A positive support group for the LGBTQ community in Petaluma. Meetings every Monday.

Pride Skate: LGBT Roller Disco – Church 8. $10. 7 pm to 10 pm. (554 Fillmore St.) 415-7521967. An LGBT roller skating disco happening every Tuesday.

Arrival: The Music of ABBA – Davies Symphony Hall. $30-$85. $7:30. (201 Van Ness) www.sfsymphony.org. Get ready for a night of gold, glitter, and ABBA hits performed live.

Easy – The Edge SF. Free. 7 pm to 2 am. (4149 18th St.) www.edgesf. com. Enjoy $2 well drink specials and a fun-loving crowd.

Castro Farmers Market – Noe St. at Market. Free. 4 pm to 8 pm. (Noe St. at Market) www. pcfma.com. Enjoy fresh produce and local made foods and delicacies.

Happening every Wednesday.

Booty Call - Q Bar. $4. 10 pm to 2 am. (456 Castro St.) www.qbarsf. com. Juanita More! hosts this weekly party with hot guys, strong drinks and fun dance mash ups.

Meditation Group – San Francisco Public Library. Free. 12 pm to 12:45 pm. (100 Larkin St.) www.sfpl.org. A weekly meditation group to find inner calmness and peace.

Grease Sing-Along – Davies Symphony Hall. www.sfymphony. org. (201 Van Ness Ave.) www. sfsymphony.org. A one night only sing-along hosted by special guest Didi Conn.

Online Guide to Over 250 Nonprofits, Community, Arts & Athletic Groups Benefting SF’s LGBT Community

California Gold Pageant – Beatbox. $15. 5 pm. (314 11th St.) www.beatboxsf.com. Enjoy the sixth Annual Miss California Pageant showcasing top local drag performers and benefitting local charities.

Daytime Realness – El Rio. $6.

3 pm. (3158 Mission St.) www.facebook.com/daytimerealness. Heklina, Stanley Frank & DJ Carnita present an afternoon of drag, dancing and disorder happening every third Sunday.

A program of the nonprofit Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation

Connect with our nonprofits to become a client, member, donor &/or volunteer Gay Bowling – Mission Bowling Club. $15. 5 pm to 8 pm. (3176 17th St.) www.missionbowlingclub. com. Mix, mingle and meet new friends at this weekly bowling social. Full bar and restaurant inside club.

Search by Category or Name, Over 100 YouTube Videos Calendar of Nonprofit’s Major Fundraisers, Arts & Athletic Events, Fairs & Annual Observances

CASTRO

fruits m o r F “ s” FARMERS’ MARKET to nut

WEDNESDAYS

4PM - 8PM

This July at the market: Get your fresh basil, Bok Choy, Summer Squash, Crookneck, Onions, Carrots, Lettuce, Cherry & Heirloom Tomatoes from Nyia Yi! Prather Ranch has Farm-fresh Ground Beef, Sirloin, Ribs, Pork, Chicken, and various sausages!

Market Events: July 16: Enter to Win a market bag of fresh Stone Fruit!

NOE ST. BETWEEN

MARKET ST. & BEAVER ST. 1.800.949.FARM • pcfma.com/castro

25

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

J U N E 1 4 , 2 0 1 4 — JA N UA RY 1 1 , 2 0 1 5

stunning solo “Over the Rainbow” from Wizard of Oz. Sharon McNight was her usual brash and brassy self singing “Sharon’s Song” about living “in the meantime.” Spencer Day jazzed it up with his deep baritone “Missing Tonight.” Emcee Matt DeAngelis gave a rousing “Wagon Wheel.”

The cast did several songs and jigs from the ONCE pre-show, as well as showcasing many of their own original pieces. Several stand-out classics: Tina Stafford’s “Black Coffee” and Noel Coward’s drunken “I Went to a Marvelous Party” (“and I couldn’t have liked it more”); Donna Gardner’s ever-accelerating snipe “If You

Sister Dana in the Pride Parade 2014

Hadn’t But You Did;” Christine Bokhour’s sexy “All That Jazz;” and Matt Wolpe & Tiffany Topol running through every imaginable 90s golden oldie in a manic mash-up.

(KARLSBERG continued from page 23) research. When the voices become loud, constant, and insistent, that’s when I begin to write. That’s a terrific moment.

I might have trouble figuring out what a character’s hair color is or what she’s wearing, but I know exactly the pitch and timbre of her voice. I’m not so much a writer as an eavesdropper.

Golden Gate Park • deyoungmuseum.org Anthony Friedkin, Jean Harlow, Drag Queen Ball, Long Beach, from the series The Gay Essay, 1971.

Gelatin silver print. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, anonymous gift

( Joan Opyr is a writer, an expatriate Southerner, a psychiatric nurse, and the author of three award-winning

PHOTO BY ABBY ZIMBERG

(SISTER DANA continued from page 18) Since 1987, A IDS WA L K SA N FRANCISCO has raised more than $82 million for lifesaving HIV prevention, testing, and care programs and services, and has grown into the largest AIDS fundraising event in Northern California. The AIDS Walk is July 20th in Golden Gate Park. aidswalk.net/sanfran.

Sister Dana sez, “The ink is barely dry on the Supreme Court›s Hobby Lobby decision, but already conservative Repugnicans are trying to use ‘religious freedom’ as a justification for firing people simply because they’re gay. OUTRAGEOUS!!!”

(ROSTOW continued from page 19) novels. Idaho Code and Shaken and Stirred are published by Bywater Books. From Hell to Breakfast is published by Blue Feather Books. All are available in paperback and eBook format.)

Michele Karlsberg Marketing and Management specializes in publicity for the LGBT community. This year, Karlsberg celebrates twenty-five years of successful book campaigns.

High Court ruling? Will Justice Alito’s comment that the opinion doesn’t provide a loophole for avoiding laws against racial discrimination extend to us? Note that our champion Justice Kennedy wrote his own concurring opinion, emphasizing the limited nature of the ruling.

And what of the numerous federal court rulings that have not only recognized our right to marry, but have also done so with stirring rhetoric, pulling gay men and lesbians into a full constitutional embrace; equal protection, the fundamental right to marry, even the status of a protected minority? Can this asinine opinion undermine all that progress?

Would the same federal courts that have heralded our relationships and our place in American society turn around and give the thumbs up to some right wing company that wants to dismiss our relationships based on “sincerely held religious beliefs?” I hope not. But that said, you just never know how High Court opinions will be greeted once they hit the ground running in the federal judiciary.

Finally, as I wind up this analysis, please note that Lambda Legal has joined the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, and the Transgender Law Center, in opposing the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. Among ENDA’s many f laws, its religious loopholes would open the door for sexual orientation to stand alone as an exception to antidiscrimination laws.

We might not know exactly how the Hobby Lobby opinion will be interpreted when it comes to gay rights, but we certainly know (and I’m speaking for myself not Lambda) that LGBT Americans will be far better protected under the auspices of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, with its half century of case law, than under the fragile shelter of a stand-alone mess of a bill that was proposed as a compromise in the 1990s.

Let’s put sexual orientation and gender alongside race, sex, national origin and religion in our most powerful federal law against workplace discrimination. If we wind up out in the cold with only ENDA to protect us, who knows whether or not some court will use Hobby Lobby as a pass for gay bias. If we are added to Title VII however, the Hobby Lobby precedent, with its admonition that it could not support “racial” discrimination, arguably could not be used against us. arostow@aol.com

26

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

Dive Into Underlying Desires GEMINI (May 21 – June 20) Few can dance with life’s dynamic ups-and-downs as deftly as you, dear Gemini. Readjusting your approach in response to recent upsets will refine your reputation in the long run.

Astrology

CANCER (June 21 – July 22) Consider how you convey yourself, Cancer. A “feeler” by nature, you may find yourself flustered by current situations that call for clearer communication. Take time to mend mixed signals.

LIBRA (September 23 – October 22) Look twice before letting it roar, Libra.

Passionate impulses ignite your carnal instincts now. Ponder the purity of your intentions before you pounce. You’ll manifest more meaningful results that way.

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18) Come clean, Aquarius. Dissolve your attachment to toxic secrets that are spoiling in your subconscious. Acknowledge the truth, accept the consequences, and move on with your sacred mission.

SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21) Stick’em up, Scorpio! Surrendering to your surroundings will help you synchronize with celestial forces that can strive to support you now.

Learn to let down your guard a little.

PISCES (February 19 – March 20) You’re fulfilling your fishy birthright as the zodiac’s official expert in navigating the unknown. Ordinarily, one would cower at this ever-confusing cosmic climate. Thank heavens you’re the opposite of ordinary.

Gypsy Love

ARIES (March 21 – April 19) There, there, Aries. Believe it or not, these unexpected detours do serve a purpose. Now you’ve discovered where to purge pesky roadblocks that impede your personal and professional freedom.

www.GypsyLoveProductions.com LEO (July 23 – August 22) Love it or leave it, Leo. You’ve uncovered fascinating facts that further disclose where your lion-heart lies. Be willing to walk away from distractions that haven’t deserved your undivided devotion.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21) Whether you’re focusing on finances, friendships, or your next flirtatious fling, it’s essential to know where you stand, Sagittarius. Tune into visceral vibrations that verify what you truly value.

VIRGO (August 23 – September 22) Vocalize your vision, Virgo. Creative projects pack a powerful punch now, and you’re gaining public praise. Clarifying career goals will enlighten your allies and set the tone for lasting success.

CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19) Inconvenient delays in your daily routine reveal where you’ve cut corners in the past. Whittle down your workload wherever possible, Capricorn. When conquering your goals, quality always trumps quantity.

better.

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20) It’s possible you’ve been blurring the boundaries in your bank account, Taurus. Reduce your risk of resource depletion by diving deeper into underlying desires. Scrutinize the source of your spending.

Gypsy Love Productions is dedicated to inspiring love and unity with music, dance, and astrology.

compiled by Rink

AL L PHOTOS BY RIN K

When friends come to visit the Bay Area, where do you like to take them and why?

Paul Colfer

Bill Hirsh

Reyna Terror

Marlon Woodward

“Twin Peaks, because it has a great view.”

“The Mission, because they have the best burritos.”

“The Exploratorium, because it is a great experience.”

“Potrero Hill and Glenn Canyon, because they are not normally things visitors would see, with the architecture, people and sports, and the local color and crooked Vermont Street.”

Steven Underhill

PHOTOGRAPHY

415 370 7152

WEDDINGS, HEADSHOTS, PORTRAITS

stevenunderhill.com · stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com 27

BAY TIM ES JuLY 1 0 , 2 0 1 4

12 days. 1,900 lesbians. Pure bliss!

Olivia’s Australia & New Zealand Cruise Odyssey (February 13-24, 2015)

FREE

BALCONY UPGRADE! Mention “BT14AUS”

THE BEST IN LESBIAN ENTERTAINMENT FEATURING: Australian country music star Beccy Cole, and Olivia signature entertainers Vickie Shaw, Roxanna Ward, Lisa Koch, Karen Williams, Sweet Baby J’ai, Teresa Trull, Barbara Higbie, DJ Rockaway and C.C. Carter

YOUR PORTS OF CALL: Sydney-Hobart-Scenic Cruising through Fiordland National Park-Dunedin-Christchurch-Wellington-Auckland

UNFORGETTABLE PRE-TRIP AND POST-TRIP STRETCHER OPTIONS: The Great Barrier Reef and Ayers Rock!

FREE BALCONY UPGRADE! BOOK BY JULY 31, 2014!

Olivia is THE Travel Company for Lesbians. We have taken over 200,000 women on vacation. Not just any vacation. Those made just for YOU — and those like you.

CALL (800) 631-6277 or VISIT OLIVIA.COM