Fifty Years Ago: Bay Gays, 1976

A compilation of news reports on the burgeoning "homosexual community" in San Francisco, in the freewheeling carnival days before Harvey Milk, before the riots, before AIDS and all that.  I was still in the closet, and though I knew I was gay I didn't feel any kinship with the screaming queens out there.  The two quiet, polite, monogamous guys interviewed in the first clip here were more my speed, and still are.  But San Francisco was in the vanguard of the gay rights movement, which has benefited us all from coast to coast.  

BTW, David Goodstein, who appears in the first clip, was owner and publisher of The Advocate, which I later subscribed to for several years.

-----

What I'm Watching: A Trip down Market Street, 1906

 

Only in San Francisco: a world without rules!  The libertarian's dream.  What would that look like?  This film shows you clearly, with a camera mounted on a streetcar proceeding leisurely through the heart of the great city in a very casual mix of streetcars, horses, buggies, automobiles, bicycles, and fleet-footed pedestrians - a jaw-dropping sight sure to raise the hair on your head.

Just four days later, it all came crashing down.  Alas, Babylon!

The film speed has been corrected, and a bit of sound and color added.  The video description on the YouTube page explains how the film was made and much later found and restored.  A priceless piece of American history you won't forget.

-----

Proud Whopper

Sold only at one BK in San Francisco, ending today. What's so special about it? You'll have to watch the vid to find out:

CALIFORNIA MARRIES GAYS

San Francisco City Hall last night

Sandy Stier and Kris Perry are wed by the California Attorney General

Jeff Zarillo and Paul Katami are wed by the Mayor of Los Angeles

What a difference a day makes! While your Head Trucker slept Friday afternoon and evening, at around 3 p.m. California time the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted its stay in the Prop 8 case and allowed same-sex marriages to resume immediately in the Golden State. This surprise development caught everyone off guard, since it had been expected that the appeals court would wait out the 25-day period before the Supreme Court's ruling became effective. However, legal experts say the appeals court was well within its rights, and the law, to lift its own stay on its own ruling.

The plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case lost no time in getting hitched. In San Francisco, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier were wed by Kamala Harris, California Attorney General, at San Francisco City Hall, and likewise down in Los Angeles, Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarillo were wed at City Hall by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The timing is doubly delicious since it is Pride weekend in those cities, and Friday was the 44th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 1969 that sparked the gay-rights movement.

Rachel reports on the breathtaking developments:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

San Francisco International Airport

It Gets Better - San Francisco Police Department

Gay Violence: NO!

Last Friday night, a crowd in the Castro chased some street preachers out of the 'hood, and the riot squad had to escort them out in force, for protection. An ominous scene:

Joe Jervis says:

Over the weekend the story got major play on right-wing and Christianist blogs as another example (like in Palm Springs) of how inherently violent and intolerant gay people supposedly are. I'm not at ALL buying that things went like the Justice House people claim, but these confrontations are definitely escalating. Ugly and uglier.

I'm really worried about where this is heading. Somebody is going to get killed and we're all going to lose. I'm pissed, we're all fucking pissed, but this is going to a bad place. And I say that knowing that if I had been in the Castro on Friday night, I probably would have been right there in it. We've got the moral upper hand in this fight and every day more and more people see that. But we have GOT to keep these things peaceful. Yell, fuck yeah, YELL. But don't touch. Don't hit. Don't throw. Please.

Andrew Sullivan says:

Some of the fringe elements in the gay community risk undoing the massive, positive wave of peaceful protest this weekend with intolerance and even violence. Cut it out, morons. It's sickening. Christians - even Christianists, who seek to impose their religious convictions into laws that would actively punish gay couples - nonetheless have First Amendment rights that must be respected at all times.

What I say: Ditto to all the above. Look guys, it's a symbolic battle we're fighting here, not a physical one. I'm mad as hell too, but I know lashing out physically will only hurt us, not help us. It's not cool. It sucks. So DON'T DO IT. Use your big head, sober up, and channel that energy into what will help us and all Americans in the struggle for equality. Be men, not ugly babies.

Yeah, our rights are delayed, and most unjustly. But you ain't hurting that much, to get violent over it. We are all still going to our jobs every day, paying the bills, lounging on the sofa and watching TV at night, hanging with our friends, all the comfortable routines of modern life.

Meanwhile, FIVE MILLION people have died over in the Congo, and more every day, in a brutal decade of genocide. Do you know about that? Do you care? In a situation like that, retaliatory violence for self-defense might be justified. But that's not what's happening here, not by a long shot.

So let's put things in perspective, folks. Peaceful, nonviolent protests are fine. Anything more is just plain stupid. Period.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

--Martin Luther King