Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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San Francisco Examiner - June 28, 2004
P.J. Corkery, pjcorkery@yahoo.com
But I can't help wishing that President Clinton also could see, and know about, some curious developments and changes elsewhere in San Francisco. Occurrences that speak to the anger and disgust, as well as the joy, that people here are feeling.
I wish he could have seen the 34th annual Gay Pride Parade that took three hours to wend its way up Market Street yesterday. This year's offering was quite different from what you might think of as your usually raucous, outrageous San Francisco pride parade.
It was still plenty festive, but I'd have to describe yesterday's event as more of, ah, a ... Wedding March.
Newlyweds outnumbered the newly out. Marchers showing marriage licenses exceeded the merely licentious merrily showing off. There were more church groups than fetish clubs. ... Even the transvestites were wearing white. ...
The hero of the day was Mayor Gavin Newsom, who appeared one-third of the way through the very long line of march. I had expected that he'd bring a few friends and supporters with him. But The Gav apparently brought every one of the 1,400 couples that wed at City Hall with him. It took a full fifteen minutes for the contingent of newlyweds accompanying Newsom to pass by my vantage point. Many came in wedding attire or held up posters of their marriage licenses. The most-applauded placard: "Gavin is Our Best Man." ...
Politicians risk boos or, even worse, being shunned when they venture into a public march. But there were hoorays and huzzahs for Kamala Harris ... Mark Leno ... Jeff Adachi ... Susan Leal ... Carole Migden ... Dennis Herrera. ... Summing up: Family formation has replaced AIDS as the major societal theme of the parade. ...
Then I wish Bill Clinton could roam the streets of SoMa, where he might spy the posters showing the hooded, bewired Iraqi prisoner, with the angry caption, "Got Democracy?" The posters are the work of Robert Mailer Anderson, the gifted and funny novelist of Northern California ("Boonville," Mr. President, is Anderson's terrific novel about growing up as the child of especially narcissistic and narcotized Baby Boomers). The posters were prompted by Anderson's long concern about civil liberties, a concern sharpened into dismay when, while trying to board a plane last month, he was told that his traveling companion was on the government's "No Fly List" and could not alight the plane. Who was this suspect traveling companion, this possible terrorist? ... Anderson's two-year old daughter, that's who. This toddler was identified by name as one too dangerous to let on a plane.
This'll interest you as an author, Mr. President. After this outrage, Anderson mused on the fact that in the last great American war, the man for whom he is named -- Norman Mailer -- sat down and wrote an antiwar novel. But Anderson wondered if in this crisis we have time to wait for a novel. So up went the posters. ...
Mr. President, I also wish you had witnessed an evening at the First Unitarian Church recently, when one of San Francisco's favorite authors was shouted down into silence because the audience needed to hear another author, Tim Russert, speak to the events of the day, namely the war. Shouted down was the estimable Calvin Trillin, much loved for his food writing and his political quips. But so concerned about the war are San Franciscans that they silenced him to hear the real, serious war news. ...
And I wish as well, Mr. President, that you could have visited Bayview, a district of five neighborhoods, wracked suddenly by gun violence and killings. Killings that have made us the murder capital of Northern California, outpacing tough Oakland. Killings that leave some children dead on the streets and others hopeless in their houses. We would welcome your counsel. ...
I'm glad, Mr. President, that you'll see San Francisco's beauty, bounty and goodness. But I wish you could see how angry people are about the war in Iraq ... the war on Americans' rights ... and the war in our city's streets. And yet how they march to celebrate victory. ...
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