Are you the KKKutest of the Castro?

Join Gay Shame for a late entry into the Cutest of the Castro beauty pageant

What: Join Gay Shame for a late entry into the Cutest of the Castro beauty pageant

When: Sunday Oct. 3rd 2004 - 2:30 pm

Where: Meet at the special strategically located Gay Shame convergence center: 18th St. between Castro and Hartford

Dress to absolute, terrifying, ragged, devastating excess and bring... Blackened teeth, low-carb Iraqi crude (looks good, feels better), video head cleaner, botox damage, extreme collagen makeovers, creatine muscle madness, tina, Kimberly's coke, diamonds anything camouflage, the now-legal AK 47, blood (just in case the police or pride monitors aren't present), decaf Greay Goose appletinis, more diamonds Tiffany's wedding bands, liposuction leftovers, photo-facial blush, sweatshop swimsuit coture (for the talent segment), depth, inner beauty and charm.

GAY SHAME OPPOSES MARRIAGE IN ANY FORM

Whatever happened to the time when being queer was an automatic challenge to the disgusting, oppressive, patriarchal institution of holy matrimony? Now, it seems that queers are so desperate to get their taste of straight privilege that they'll camp out in the rain with the hopes that the state will finally sanction their carnal coupling.

We are now faced with the spectacle of thousands of gay men and lesbians rabid with longing for any shred of acceptance from a violent, hypocritical establishment that really wants us dead. Don't forget-marriage is the central institution of that misogynist, racist system of domination and oppression known as heterosexuality. Don't get us wrong-we support everyone's right to fuck whomever they want-we're just not in favor of supporting the imperialist, bloodthirsty status quo.

Local, national and international-conservative and liberal-corporate and grass-roots media have all swarmed around City Hall as if Gavin Newsom is the vanguard leader of gay civil rights. Gavin Newsom came to power by aggressively pandering to the privileged gay vote with a message criminalizing poor people in a city wracked by years of greedy hyper-development. Now, he's giving back to the gays who got him elected. These are the same sellouts who have for years promoted gay marriage as the penultimate achievement on the road to "equality," yet they are now willing to bestow full credit upon Gavin Newsom for their own misguided work.

Newsom is using gay marriage as a wedge issue in order to get national press, and further his megalomaniacal quest for national power. What is depressing is that gay people are so blinded by their desperation for "rights" that they'll promote a cynical, closet-fascist as the messiah.

GAY SHAME SUPPORTS SEX IN ALL BARS

In a city renowned for a teaming gay sexual underworld, public sex and queer visibility are under attack. Gentrification has virtually ended cruising in South of Market alleys, and Polk Street gay bars are being replaced by hip, upscale straight bars. The latest battleground is Folsom Street, legendary for generations as a mythical site for backroom bacchanalia.

On Friday,November 14, at 11:30 p.m., undercover cops from the Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control (ABC) raided Folsom Street gay cruise bar My Place, and began handcuffing men who were engaged in nothing other than healthy, glamorous sexual behavior in the tea room. The agents questioned the men at length in the back hallway, and even forced several men up to the roof for interrogation. Six men were cited for lewd conduct and eventually released. This was the culmination of a six-month undercover investigation by the ABC, which included undercover officers observing and photographing men in the throes of sexual passion, on several occasions. ABC agents were allegedly responding to the hysteria of one complainant, regarding his fears that his friends were contracting syphilis at My Place, but the ABC has also visited the Hole in the Wall, the Powerhouse, and the Eagle.

It is frightening that, in San Francisco, in 2003, gay men are being handcuffed and interrogated by undercover cops for "lewd conduct" inside a gay bar. What is also chilling is the reaction of My Place's manager, Cip. He states in the BAR, "we really are getting rid of the people who just come in there to have sex" and "we hired someone to be the sex police in there and make sure no one had sex there." While sex is not legal in bars, My Place has been renowned for decades as a backroom dive. Clearly, the bar is walking a delicate line in order to stay open, but talking about "getting rid" of the clientele who have kept the bar open and hiring "sex police" to do the ABC's job is unacceptable, and furthers a reactionary, silencing agenda.

Are we headed back to the sex panic of the 1980s, when every bathhouse in San Francisco was shuttered due to fears about the spread of HIV and AIDS? Such aggressive sex-loathing homophobia did nothing to further HIV prevention, succeeding only in hastening the disappearance of an entire sexual and social culture. Handcuffing, detaining, and citing gay men for "lewd conduct" inside a gay bar-allegedly to halt the spread of syphilis, a treatable disease-does nothing but set us back to the pre-Stonewall 1960s, when gay bars were routinely raided by the cops for virtually any reason at all.

Queers have fought for generations to make San Francisco a safe place for sexual expression in all its forms. We will not accept a crackdown on public sex, which is always a cover-up for a crackdown on queer visibility.

Ding-Dong! Bob Ross is Dead!
1934-2003

We love the good witches, but Bob Ross was NO Glinda. As editor and publisher of the Bay Area Reporter, Bob Ross supported straight conservatives and big business interests over community leaders and progressive values. He consistently opposed every tenants rights ordinance on the ballot. In May 1992, Police Chief Richard Hongisto declared martial law and arrested nearly 2000 people in the Rodney King sweeps. Hongisto then illegally ordered an issue of the Bay Times confiscated when the paper ran a critical cover story. Bob Ross went on to endorse Richard Hongisto for Mayor. Bob Ross endorsed Willie Brown over Tom Ammiano and acted as an avid Gavin Newsom devotee, supporting all of Newsom's racist and anti-poor campaigns.

Newspaper obituaries invoke the distant memory of Bob Ross's friendship with Harvey Milk in order to resuscitate Bob Ross as a gay hero. It's convenient that these obituaries ignore Bob Ross's twenty-year legacy of working against everything for which Harvey Milk stood.

We'll be dancing on Bob Ross's grave.

10-24-03: No on Newsom! No on M! Mary 4 Mayor! Massive Mobilization!

Join Gay Shame and Other Radical Newsom Foes to Denounce Political Scapegoating, Political Panhandling, and Attacks on the Homeless!

PLEASE FORWARD FAR AND WIDE!!!
THIS IS THE MASSIVE MOBILIZATION!!!

Gay Shame, The Virus in the System, sponsors
MARY'S CAMPAIGN KICKOFF PARTY
NO ON NEWSOM
NO ON M
Friday October 24, 2003
5pm

Meet at Geary and Mason Streets, near the luxurious Ruby Skye, where Gavin and his goons will be throwing a $10,000 fundraiser to fund their new attack on poor people: Proposition M, which effectively criminalizes almost all forms of panhandling.

Mary will be presenting her platform to the voters and rallying San Francisco to oppose Newsom for Mayor, and further attacks on the cities most vulnerable population (AKA Prop M).

Food, music, dacing, ridiculous and crazed entertainment, gavin, gavin, gavin

this is a free event

all are welcomed and encouraged

mary's endorsements include the following:

Terrorists Against Gavin (T.A.G.)
Riff-raff Against Gavin (R.A.G.)
Gays Against Gavin (G.A.G.)
Fashionistas Against Gavin (F.A.G.)
Parents and Friends of Lesbians Against Gavin (P.F.L.A.G.) Patty Hearst, aka Tania
and the remaining members of the Symbionese Liberation Army

Gay Shame Protesters Still Face Erroneous Charges Resulting from Police Violence at Gavin Newsom’s LGBT Center Fundraiser

September 18 2003, San Francisco—Topic: Gay Shame demands that all charges against peaceful Gay Shame protestors arrested on February 6, 2003, be immediately dismissed. Four peaceful protestors still face charges resulting from Supervisor Gavin Newsom’s February 6th fundraiser at the LGBT Center. On that evening, Gay Shame protestors in festive attire were handing out flyers, and were ironically denied entrance to their own Center by the SFPD. A squad of SFPD officers escorted Gavin and Kimberly Newsom, straight conservatives, into the building and then immediately began attacking queer protestors. Violent SFPD officers threw one person face-first into oncoming traffic, put another into a choke-hold until he passed out, and bludgeoned one woman so hard in the face that blood poured out of her mouth and one of her teeth was shattered. The spectacle of queer protesters being bashed outside of the San Francisco LGBT Center, as Center staff, the Newsoms, Supervisor Bevan Dufty and gay politicos looked on (and did not intervene), was not lost on local and national media. Four protestors were arrested in the February police riot outside the LGBT Center, and faced ludicrous felony charges (after serving jail time of up to 60 hours). Most of the original charges have been dropped under intense public pressure, but four protestors still face misdemeanor counts of Resisting Arrest. How, one might ask, can peaceful demonstrators be charged with Resisting Arrest if they are not charged with any other crime? The answer is that clearly these charges are politically motivated as Gavin Newsom attempts to sweep to power with strong-arm tactics. Supervisor Newsom’s response to peaceful queer protestors has been evident in several recent protests: instigate police violence, arrest non-violent protestors after they’ve been brutalized, and then call for trumped-up felony charges. Newsom responds to peaceful queer protestors in front of their own community center with unnecessary and excessive force. We can only expect that, if he is elected mayor, his term in office will be a reign of terror against anyone who doesn’t bow to his dream of a San Francisco that is safe for tourists and developers, and brutally represses everyone else. Gay Shame demands that all charges against peaceful Gay Shame protestors arrested on February 6 be immediately dismissed. We call on Supervisor Newsom, Supervisor Dufty, Center Director Thom Lynch, and all concerned citizens and officials to immediately demand that District Attorney Hallinan drop all charges. Hallinan can be reached at (415)553-1741. GAY SHAME is a Virus in the System. We are committed to a queer extravaganza that brings direct action to astounding levels of theatricality. We will not be satisfied with a commercialized gay identity that denies the intrinsic links between queer struggle and challenging power. We seek nothing less than a new queer activism that foregrounds race, class, gender, and sexuality, to counter the self-serving “values” of gay consumerism and the increasingly hypocritical left. We are dedicated to fighting the rabid assimilationist monster with a devastating mobilization of queer brilliance. GAY SHAME is a celebration of resistance: all are welcome.

SF Pride Director Buys Gay Shame Domain Names — And Uses them to Advertise Hate Speech!

July 13, 2003 - Organizers with Gay Shame (www.gayshamesf.org) are shocked to discover that Teddy Witherington, the executive director of the San Francisco Pride Committee, has apparently registered three internet domains in our name and pointed them to the web site of the loathsome-yet-laughable fundamentalist Christian Fred Phelps (www.godhatesfags.com)!

Following is an excerpt from the gayshame.com record in the Internet WHOIS database, the official, publicly-available registry of Internet domains and their owners. It was taken at 11:15pm on Sunday, July 13, 2003. Entries for gayshame.net and gayshame.org also list the Pride Committee as registrant and Witherington as the contact.

Domain Name: GAYSHAME.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net

Referral URL: http://www.opensrs.org
Name Server: NS1.QCWEBSERVICES.COM
Name Server: NS2.QCWEBSERVICES.COM
Status: ACTIVE
Updated Date: 31-may-2003
Creation Date: 29-jun-2002
Expiration Date: 29-jun-2004

[whois.opensrs.net]
Registrant:
SFLGBTPCC Inc.
1230 Market Street PMB 421
San Francisco, CA 94102-4801
US

Administrative Contact:
Witherington, Teddy ed@sfpride.org
1230 Market Street PMB 421
San Francisco, CA 94102-4801
US
415-864-3733
Technical Contact:
Administrator, Domain dns@qcwebs.com
PO Box 2548
Mill Valley, CA 94942-2548
US
415-381-5998

Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 31-May-2003.
Record expires on 29-Jun-2004.
Record Created on 29-Jun-2002.

How can Witherington equate Gay Shame’s exposure of the corporatization of Pride with the homophobic hatemongering of Fred Phelps? We are appalled that the executive director of San Francisco Pride would resort to such immature, slanderous tactics — and that he would apparently do so not knowing that his move would be recorded in public. For pre-emptively restricting his opponents’ rights to free speech, Teddy Witherington should be ashamed.

All Charges Dropped Against Gay Shame Activists

In a dizzying display of community support, supervisors, prominent community members and even the San Francisco Pride Parade have called for the release of the Gay Shame demonstrators who joined the parade to oppose Gavin Newsom last Sunday. The queer community has come together to say no to Newsom and to demand that all charges be dropped.

Responding to the massive outpouring of community support, police dropped all charges against the Gay Shame activists on Tuesday evening, July 1st. The prisoners were released at 11:00pm.

GAY SHAME Seeks Nominations for Annual Shame Awards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 18, 2003 (San Francisco)

Gay Shame, the radical alternative to the corporate takeover of gay pride, seeks nominees for our second annual "Gay Shame Awards." With Gay Shame groups erupting from New York to Stockholm, Toronto to Barcelona, Gay Shame is the new voice in progressive queer activism, a voice dedicated to social justice for all.

Held in late June near the time of the Pride Parade, the awards ceremony will be a festival of resistance, a queer takeover of the bland, whitewashed gayborhood and a chance to express our queer identities in ways other than just buying a bunch of crap. Nominees will be invited and yes, oh yes, there will be press.

We encourage you and your organization to nominate those institutions and individuals who should be ashamed of their disservice to the queer community, progressive politics and social justice - in other words, the CEOs, the landlords, the cops and the dot-com criminals who make "gay" sound glum. We are particularly interested in the ways some gays and lesbians have traded their movement's radical roots for "a place at the table." It's a movement, not a market - and we need your help to make sure the right people get the recognition they deserve.

To get you started, here are some possible categories for this year's awards:

Gender Fundamentalism
Model Minority Award
Propagation of Lesbian Bed Death
The "In" Award
Commodification of the Male Gays
The "Ewww" Award
Voice of the Powerful Media Award
Lifetime Achievement
Racist Profiling Award
Body Fascism
Facilitation of the Congregation of Gay Police

If there's a story or a situation that doesn't seem to fit the list above, please send it along anyway. There's no set list of categories (after all, this ain't the Oscars). All we promise is that the Gay Shame Awards will be wickedly humorous and devastatingly relevant.

A list of last year's nominations and awardees can also be found by clicking the Awards link at the bottom of the page .

To submit your nominations, email us at awards@gayshamesf.org, send us a FAX at (415)345-8057 or complete the form. Please be sure to include your name and contact info!

For gay shame news, visit these links: http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/03/1581748.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/02/1571034_comment.php#1573516
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/03/1587086.php

Witnesses, photos and video urgently needed.
Please contact us by email or telephone if you were a witness to the police attacks on protesters outside the GLBT Center on February 6th or elsewhere.

gayshame@gay.com
(415) 794-4393

www.sfbg.com/37/20/news_ed_cops.html
www.sfbg.com/37/20/news_shame.html

Friday February 07, 2003 at 10:55 PM
Press Release

SFPD Beats Queers at Gavin Newsom's Gay Gala

What: A Press conference
Where: To be held at the Hall of Justice, 850 Bryant
When: At Noon on Monday, February 10, 2003
Why: Nonviolent protestors were beaten and arrested while drawing attention to Gavin Newsom's event at the GLBT Community Center and two are being held on hyped up and excessive felony charges.

At The Hall of Justice at noon on Monday, February 10th, Gay Shame-- the radical queer group who organized thursday's demonstration-- will hold a press conference to address the unwarranted beating and arrest of peaceful protestors who were handing out informational flyers. The police attack left one at the hospital with stitches and a shattered tooth, two thrown face down in the street, and four more arrested-- two facing hyped up felony charges.

We will be there to answer media questions and to demand that District Attorney Terrence Hallinan drop the charges immediately.

We will be joined by members of numerous community organizations.

For more information, please call: (415) 794-4393

Queer-bashing at LGBT Center

QUEERS GATHER TO PEACEFULLY PROTEST

On the evening of Thursday February 6th, a group of queer protesters gathered outside the LGBT Center to protest the appearance of District Supervisor Gavin Newsom at a fundraiser sponsored by him and his wife. The protesters gathered there to call attention to his racist and classist policies, and to ask The Center why they would accept this influence from someone who is obviously merely trying to exploit the powerful gay vote. Protesters had been peacefully flyering people walking into the LGBT Center as Gavin and Kimberley were escorted into The Center by a squad of SFPD officers. They were barely noticed by the protesters until they had entered the building.

Well after they had entered, a group of queer activists calmly attempted to enter what was supposedly their center in order to bring these issues up with Gavin as well as Center officials. At this time, the police presence became more and more violent. One demonstrator, standing with his back to The Center, and the line of police officers, was shoved harder and harder by police wielding batons. He was eventually shoved face first onto the ground.

COPS BASH QUEERS IN FRONT OF GAY CENTER

As the protesters tried to prevent more violence from occurring, the police incited a melee which spilled onto the street at Market and Octavia, and began beating and arresting people at random as Center officials complacently stood by and watched.

After the police were done, many had been injured. One person even had to seek medical attention because her face was bloodied and her tooth was knocked out by a particularly aggressive officer, star number 1698. Ironically, Newsom and his spokespeople are trying to spin the events as a physical attack on him and his wife, despite the fact that the SFPD was solely responsible for the escalation of the situation.

FALSE CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST ACTIVISTS

Four people were arrested and charged, and two people are still being held for felonies. We are outraged at this excessive response to a peaceful situation. These charges are excessive and ridiculous for any protest. They are an obvious attempt to distract attention from the absurd reality that queers were bashed by the SFPD in front of the LGBT Center. We want to call special attention to Gavin Newsom's direct involvement in this police violence, and The Center's complicity regarding it.

We demand that these political prisoners be released and their charges be dropped.

What can you do?

Call District Attorney Terrence Hallinan immediately and demand that all charges against all four activists be dropped.

Call 415-553-1741 and reference the case that occurred at 1900 Market Street at 7pm on 2-6-03

You are further invited to attend a press conference regarding these events this Monday February 10 at 12pm at 850 Bryant, The Hall of Justice.

Gay Shame is calling on folks to stop by 425 7th St, the Sheriff's, and support Queer prisoners arrested last night at the LGBTQ center in San Francisco.

When Gavin Newsom reaches out to the gay community, he does it with the fist of the law.

Police attacked a crowd of peaceful protestors outside the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Community Center last night just as mayoral fruntrunner Gavin Newsom arrived to host a fundraiser for the center.

Whose Community? Whose Center?

Members of the community organization Gay Shame had gathered outside the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Community Center to say “shame!” on Gavin Newsom for his notorious anti-homeless policies, as well as on the Center for its cynical attempt to cozy up to the conservative mayoral frontrunner. By holding an event with Gavin Newsom, the Center revealed who its real community was — and who got left out. At $125, tickets for this fundraiser cost more than twice the monthly income of San Francisco’s neediest under Newsom’s new “Care Not Cash” plan. Shouldn’t a community center serve those who don’t have space elsewhere? Shouldn’t it serve those who are most in need?

The gay community needs homes and health care, not just another place to dance and drink.
Police Violence at Gay Pride
San Francisco- Sunday, June 30, Gay Shame participants arrived at the SF Pride Parade to create an alternative to the consumerism, blind patriotism, and assimilationist agenda of the Parade. Participants were greeted with violence at the hands of both the Pride safety monitors and the police. Safety monitors began pushing Gay Shame participants at Market and Eighth Streets, and police officers followed by clubbing the crowd. Two people were arrested, property was confiscated, and several people suffered injuries at the hands of Pride safety monitors and the police.

In the commotion ensuing after police (and pride 'monitors') aggression, one participant, Lavern, accidentally spilled coffee on a police officer. She was then targeted by the police, grabbed and restrained. After the crowd rallied to her side, she was handcuffed, dragged half a block, and thrown into a Burger King that police commandeered as an impromptu headquarters. Inside she was held face-down on the floor as protesters demanded her release. She was then forced into a police vehicle and taken to the Southern Police Precinct at 850 Bryant. In the course of her arrest, another protester, Dennis, was dragged into a waiting police van. The police planned to hold Denis for the maximum allowable duration for public drunkenness, until his lawyer demanded a breathilizer, which showed he was sober. Both Lavern and Dennis were held for several hours and then released. Dennis's charges were dropped, but Lavern still faces a misdemeanor charge of assault on a police officer.

Gay Pride's roots lie in the famous and everyday acts of queer resistance to police brutality (Stonewall Riots. Compton Cafeteria Riots, etc). Gay Shame continues this legacy by calling attention to the increasingly conservative concerns of the gay mainstream, which sees assimilation into the dominant culture (at any cost) as the primary goal of queer struggle. "It is ironic that volunteer pride monitors demanded the arrest of protesters for continuing the radical tradition that began gay liberation," says Reginald Lamar, Gay Shame participant.