SF Pride sizzles in the sun
Hundreds of thousands of people soaked up the sun and took to San Francisco streets Sunday, June 28 to mark the 39th annual LGBT Pride Parade.
Despite the passage of Proposition 8 last November, which amended the state constitution to eliminate marriage rights for same-sex couples, and a state Supreme Court decision in May upholding the measure, revelers at the celebration in Civic Center on Sunday seemed happy.
D.J. Pimentel, 32, said there appeared to be "tons more people" this year and thought it was a reflection of there being more support and awareness overall.
Referring to the struggle for marriage equality, the openly gay Pimentel said, "It's a movement that's come so far. Every year it's going to get better and better. ... It just takes time, right?"
Estela Garcia was at the festival with Roban San Miguel, her partner of 32 years. The women, who are both 54, have four children and six grandchildren.
Garcia said the festival was "a wonderful reflection of our diversity as the LGBT community."
She also said it seemed to her to have larger attendance this year. Garcia said people were "trying to show solidarity" and "express the importance of the human right issue of the equality of marriage."
Isabel Lerma, 27, was dressed as Marie Antoinette, wearing an ornate costume and a curly blond wig.
"I just want to show my pride," said Lerma, who's straight. She said everyone should have equal rights.
"Let 'em eat cake ... Let 'em eat wedding cake!" said Lerma, customizing a quote attributed to Antoinette, the French queen who was beheaded in 1793.
Lindsey Jones, the LGBT Pride Celebration Committee's outgoing executive director, said a crowd estimate wasn't yet available. Jones said that last year, about a million people attended Pride festivities on Saturday and Sunday, including the parade. She said this year's Saturday attendance "was definitely up" from the previous year's Saturday, and "Sunday felt very robust."
San Francisco police do not provide crowd estimates.
Since 1997, Pride has granted over $1.4 million from net proceeds to local nonprofit organizations. Jones didn't yet have an estimate for how much money would be distributed to nonprofits this year.
This year’s theme: "To Form a More Perfect Union."
The theme of this year's Pride was "To Form a More Perfect Union." The parade, which had more than 200 contingents this year, included celebrants marking the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which are widely credited as the birth of the modern LGBT rights movement; religious groups; and celebrities such as actress Cloris Leachman.
This year's Pink Saturday also appeared to be a huge success, with thousands of people dancing in the streets in the Castro neighborhood.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which organized this year's street party, were pleased with the event.
"Overall, we feel it was a great success," said spokesnun Sister Barbi Mitzvah.
Mitzvah expressed gratitude for people who helped ensure the event could take place this year, such as Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who, along with police Sergeant Chuck Limbert, Mission Station's LGBT liaison, helped get the party past permitting hurdles this year.
Mitzvah said the event cost well over $100,000 but said funds brought in by the street party, which raises money for local nonprofits, were still being counted.
For an event with such huge attendance, Pride's problems appeared relatively minor. Sergeant Lyn Tomioka, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Police Department, said that on Saturday, June 28, there were two arrests for robbery and six arrests of people who were drunk in public.
Sunday, there was one arrest for someone who had a warrant, one arrest for an aggravated assault with a warrant and a parole violation, and two arrests of people who were drunk in public, said Tomioka.
She did not have more details on the arrests but said they all occurred near Civic Center during the hours of the celebration.
’Stop killing queers!’
There was some trouble during the parade when protesters, upset over Mayor Gavin Newsom's proposed cuts related to HIV/AIDS, interrupted his contingent.
Among the cuts they were protesting was a 10 percent reduction, or $559,360, in HIV/AIDS housing subsidy funding, and a $230,133 cut in benefit counseling and advocacy.
Video of the incident showed several protesters carrying a large banner walking in front of the car carrying Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Amid chants of "Stop killing queers!" several demonstrators staged a "die-in," lying down in the street in front of the car.
Newsom got out of the car and walked over to parade watchers to shake hands. His wife remained in the car at first but eventually also got out of the vehicle.
The mayor's office was livid over the incident. Nathan Ballard, Newsom's communications director, said that the mayor's budget plan provides services for people living with HIV/AIDS.
"Mayor Newsom will not be intimidated by their despicable tactics," Ballard said of the protesters. "No mayor in this country has done as much for HIV prevention as Mayor Newsom. Despite the unprecedented financial situation, the mayor's programs continue to serve the people at highest risk for HIV in San Francisco, including gay men and injection drug users. We have preserved over 95 percent of prevention services going to these key groups, including HIV testing programs and harm reduction services, and at the same time we have expanded universal health care. We are the only city in the country to have universal health care, and it extends to those who have HIV."
Eileen Shields, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said Ballard's information had come from the health department.
In an e-mail, Ballard wrote that he wasn't at the parade, "but I personally spoke with many eyewitnesses." He also accused the protesters of using fake blood (ketchup) during the melee.
In a phone call to the Bay Area Reporter , Ballard said, "Robert Haaland [co-chair of the labor organization San Francisco Pride at Work], the instigator of this incident, made a serious blunder by attacking Mayor Newsom at Pride. If Robert Haaland and his friends think it's persuasive to throw fake blood on the mayor's wife when she is seven months pregnant, they are sorely mistaken."
People involved with the protest said Ballard was trying to distract attention from the budget cuts and disputed that anyone threw anything at Newsom or his wife. Photos and videos of the event posted online and provided to the B.A.R. don't show anything being thrown at the couple.
Ballard sent photos to the B.A.R. of someone holding up a bag of what appears to be ketchup. He wrote that "fake blood was sprayed" on mayoral staffers Michael R. Farrah Jr., Alfredo Pedroza, and others.
In an e-mail, Farrah, director of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services, wrote that he had his hand on the driver's side wheel well of the antique car when "multiple people" ran into him in what he saw as an effort to stop the car.
"My own personal safety was at risk as I put myself in front of the moving car in an effort to make sure that no demonstrator was hurt by the vehicle. In this effort to make demonstrators safe I was splattered with ketchup. This is a statement of fact and not open to debate," wrote Farrah.
James Tracy, editor of The Civil Disobedience Handbook: A Brief History and Practical Guide For the Politically Disenchanted and an observer for the protest, said, "The protesters' use of fake blood was mainly confined to their own bodies. It was really obvious it was ketchup."
Jane Martin, vice chair of San Francisco Pride at Work and a die-in participant, said the protest wasn't even Haaland's idea. Martin said she's the person who had brought the proposal to the group.
Haaland called Ballard's remarks "absurd" and said, "We're talking about ketchup while people are going to be dying as a result of these cuts."