SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
DATE: Wednesday February 13, 1991 PAGE: A15 EDITION: FOURTH SECTION: NEWS LENGTH: MEDIUM SOURCE: DAVID L. KIRP Examiner columnist. COLUMN: DAVID L. KIRP TYPE OF MATERIAL: OP-ED CORRECTION: FROM 2/14/91: Because of an editing error, David L. Kirp's column in Wednesday's Examiner misstated the wording of placards carried by AIDS protesters at a recent demonstration. The placards actually read, "Fight AIDS, not Arabs." The Examiner regrets the error. WA: CORRECTION

Gay Warriors, Gay Peaceniks

SOME PLACE IN Saudi Arabia, a soldier from San Francisco, a gay man named Robert, is readying himself for the coming ground war. Whatever you think of Operation Desert Storm, Robert told the radical gay group*Queer*Nation*just before he shipped out, there are gay men and lesbians who are willing to fight

out of love-love for their gay brothers and sisters, love of their country, too. Meanwhile on the home front,*Queer*Nation*and ACT UP, the militant AIDS groups, have been doing anti-war zaps on the streets and bridges of the city. In New York, an ACT UP contingent startled Dan Rather out of his socks with an impromptu demonstration on CBS News.*Queer*Nation*has picked this moment to demand that San Francisco's Board of Supervisors-which has just made San Francisco a sanctuary for conscientious objectors-designate the city as a sanctuary for homosexuals as well. This war shines a bright light on the diversities within the gay community. Robert's story and*Queer*Nation's*campaign show the extremes. On the one side stands the homosexual as warrior. On the other side is the homosexual as protester for the particularistic, even parochial, concerns of gay men and lesbians. WHILE THE gay warrior isn't part of the sissy stereotype, gays have been at the forefront of battle at least since the time of Alexander the Great. In a spate of recent books, gay men and lesbians have detailed their hard lives as combatants in World War II and Korea and Vietnam-lives lived in fear both of enemy attack and exposure of their sexual identities. As senior military officers know well, gays are a critical presence in the armed forces: Remove gays from the medical corps, where they account for perhaps one-third of all the personnel, and that operation would wither. But the advent of gay liberation-of Stonewall and anti-discrimination efforts and, yes,*Queer*Nation*too -changes things. For the first time, many gay combatants refuse to tolerate the painful masquerade of living a double life. They're ready to serve their country, as patriots and as gays. For awhile, the Pentagon was prepared to send gay men and lesbians off to fight in the Arabian desert-then to cashier them once they were safely back home. When that bit of hypocrisy surfaced, the Pentagon beat a hasty retreat. In war as in peace, Pentagon spokesmen said, gays would be kicked out of the armed forces. There was no defense of this policy offered, no mention either of the Pentagon's own recent studies urging an end to the rule that gays shouldn't be allowed to serve the country. Nor does this pronouncement have much meaning in the field, where some commanders are simply postponing the discharge of gays and lesbians until they're used up. For gays who identify with an America at war and with gay liberation too, this battle in the desert is a momentous time. Will those warriors come home to find an American military as officially homophobic as it's always been-or will the war in Iraq accomplish for gays what World War II did for blacks, bringing on an end to discrimination in the armed forces? THE VOCAL anti-war contingent in the gay community has a very different agenda. The AIDS protesters, with their "Fight Arabs, not AIDS" placards, see

the war entirely through the prism of identity politics. The war is bad for the fight against AIDS, the argument runs-as if the war isn't bad for every good cause in the books; as if the drain on dollars was the only bad thing about the war. Now there's*Queer*Nation's*push to make San Francisco a sanctuary for gays. For people fleeing Central American death squads, or for conscientious objectors fearing prosecution, sanctuary means something. But for homosexuals? Theoretically, such an ordinance would mean San Francisco couldn't help extradite individuals threatened with prosecution under anti-sodomy laws in other states-as if such extraditions were frequent events. The real message of the gay sanctuary ordinance is symbolic: It's one more statement that gays are a force to contend with. Once, that message needed to be broadcast. But in these times, with the war setting priorities, this idea seems self-indulgent. Instead of plotting the dramatic and outrageous, gay leaders need to think hard about what a peace movement in which gays play a leading role could accomplish. That means winning back to the anti-war cause the waverers who preferred sanctions but now support the administration; it means taking seriously the need for regional security in the Middle East. Instead of pushing identity politics-the politics of AIDS, the call for a gay sanctuary-gay spokesmen should make common cause with children and blacks, the handicapped and the medically indigent and the homeless, all those victims of kindness and gentleness. A politics of inclusion, where gay voices and

others speak out for social justice and not just their own narrow cause, would be a good thing to come out of this war. ILLUSTRATION: DRAWING EXAMINER / VAL B. MINA (A MAN HOLDING A SIGN) KEYWORDS: U.S.-IRAQ WAR

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

DATE: Thursday February 7, 1991 PAGE: A3 EDITION: FOURTH SECTION: NEWS LENGTH: MEDIUM SOURCE: ROB MORSE COLUMN: ROB MORSE

THINKING GLOBALLY, ACTING SYMBOLICALLY

ASK ANY REAL*nation.*There are costs to having a foreign policy. Two weeks ago the Board of Supervisors and the mayor declared San Francisco a sanctuary for conscientious objectors to the war in the Persian Gulf. As a result, the National Association of Realtors is thinking of moving its 1996 convention, originally scheduled for San Francisco. That's 26,000 hotel rooms and a lot of bucks that will never find sanctuary here. . . . And while the Board of Supes passes symbolic resolutions making San Francisco a sanctuary for the oppressed everywhere, The City's expensive infrastructure continues to decay. There is no sanctuary for citizens and taxpayers. San Francisco's foreign policy on the Persian Gulf has an interesting history. Before the shooting started, the Board of Supes passed a resolution deploring

the troop build-up. After the shooting started, they passed the resolution making San Francisco a sanctuary for conscientious objectors. Then they passed a resolution supporting our troops. They've got everything covered. . . . Then we have the proposal to make San Francisco a gay sanctuary.*Queer*Nation,*the group which drafted the proposal, claims that The City really can become a refuge for gays whose lives are in danger around the world, once the word about San Francisco is spread everywhere. (If it hasn't been spread everywhere already.) People are persecuted and killed in some countries for their sexual inclinations, so there is a serious side to this. . . . But it's hard for everyone to take seriously. Al Ujcic writes: "We have a delightful Siamese cat who I seriously suspect of being gay. We treat Spud every bit as affectionately as we do our straight cat, Bunny. So a resolution declaring San Francisco a sanctuary for persecuted gays sounds like overfrill. Why can't they balance the budgie?" Al, I'm not sure it's the budgie that's unbalanced. . . . We could balance the budget with this gay sanctuary, though. The City should go with the original proposal, since amended, and print up signs saying "Entering San Francisco, a Gay Sanctuary." The signs would sell like walkaway crab cocktails at Fisherman's Wharf and help support all those overpaid city workers in their sanctuaries. Sign in the El Granada Post Office (about all there is to downtown El Granada): Under a picture of Saddam Hussein in a target, it says "The reason you do not have your four-cent stamps is that the government printing office

is busy printing messages for Saddam's troops." Those are being sent by means of F-15 rather than F stamps, I presume. . . . The latest war profiteering: Grenade Inc. of Pacific Palisades has introduced Grenade Shampoo ("a distinctive product for the man's man"), which comes in a plastic bottle shaped exactly like a fragmentation grenade. Wash your hair, raise the hair of others, whatever. . . . The City Council of Palm Springs is trying to ban butt-revealing bikinis on college students who flock to the town for spring break. Palm Springs Mayor Sonny Bono is against the ban and told a public meeting: "How are you going to determine what's code and what's not? Carry a pattern? Put it on (a woman's behind) and see if it fits?" When butt-revealing bikinis are outlawed, only Cher will have them. Sonny for Senate. You too can be an architecture critic. Plans and a model of the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art are now on display on the fourth floor of the old Museum of Modern Art. Herb Caen and I knocked it, while Temko of the Chron and Goldberger of the Times loved it. Check it out yourself and see if it doesn't look like a toilet bowl brush on top of a stereo cabinet. . . . Also, the Museum of Modern Art has donated two ping-pong tables used as part of the display in its "Visionary San Francisco" exhibit to Glide Memorial Church and the Buchanan Y. Curiously, they've been replaced by a display of six billiard tables by artist Sherrie Levine, on display through March 10. . . . Next Thursday, Valentine's Day, should be fun at City Hall. At 4 p.m. in the rotunda Harry Britt will preside over the first official domestic

partnerization of gay couples in San Francisco. Partnerization? Domestication? There has to be a better name for it. A pairiage ceremony? Dumb bombs: Bruce Bellingham, clearly a victim of city towing squads, says: "What if the Iraqis find out they're being charged storage by Iran for all those planes?" This is a guy who also says that if many more bombing missions are flown, Saudi Arabia will have to be renamed "Sortie Arabia." Sorta. . . . And another dumb war joke: Saddam is in his bunker looking at his mirror and says, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most hated man of all?" Then he runs upstairs to his adviser and says, "Who is this man Dukakis?" The problem with this joke is that Saddam isn't the only one who doesn't know who Dukakis is.

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

DATE: Friday January 11, 1991 PAGE: A16 EDITION: FOURTH SECTION: NEWS LENGTH: MEDIUM SOURCE: Angelo Figueroa OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

GAYS CHARGE SACRAMENTO DEPUTIES BRUTALIZED THEM FIVE*QUEER*NATION*ACTIVISTS ARRESTED AFTER DISRUPTION AT WILSON INAUGURAL

Gay activists and four San Francisco supervisors are calling for an investigation to alleged acts of brutality against gay protesters by Sacramento County Sheriff's Department officers during Gov. Wilson's inauguration ceremony. *Queer*Nation,*a San Francisco-based gay activist group, charged in a press conference Thursday that five of its members were physically and verbally abused by officers after they were arrested for disrupting Monday's inaugural ceremony. Derek Boyle, 20, said he was slammed, face-first, against a jail wall by an officer and that a group of 10 officers hurled derogatory insults at the

group. Jonathan Katz, 32, said police threatened to make more arrests for lewd and lascivious conduct if more than one member of the group used the public restroom at the jail at the same time, even though the restroom had more than one urinal. Ed Close, a spokesman for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, said the five were offered misdemeanor citations but refused them, prompting their arrest. "They came in the jail with confrontational attitudes in an obvious attempt to elicit a confrontation with our deputies," Close said. The internal affairs section of the department is conducting a preliminary investigation of the incident based on information received second-hand by the media, Close said. "The group has not filed a complaint, but we understand they are and when they do we will do a thorough investigation of the specific allegations," Close said. Supervisors Bill Maher, Harry Britt, Carole Migden and Roberta Achtenberg, who attended Thursday's press conference at City Hall, said they were co- sponsoring a resolution asking for a full investigation into the incident. The supervisors also have received a promise of help from Assemblyman John Burton. Katz said the group staged the act of civil disobedience because "gays

© 2005 LINQ Communications