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. |
