New work from contemporary ballet co. Labayen Dance/SF.
m co
20 years later, national body revises policy; Rite of Reception will be held in SF.
. AR eB
Carmina Burana revisted
– ut e s. in al ko nl on ec r o ers Ch rte p po nd Re , a a s re fied y A ssi Ba cla he ts, s t ar It’ s, w ne
LGBT Lutheran pastors welcome
see Arts
page 9
BAYAREAREPORTER
Vol. 40
. No. 29 . 22 July 2010
▼
Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
Int’l AIDS confab highlights human rights, prevention
CA Dems neutral on Prop 19
by Liz Highleyman ore than 20,000 researchers, public health and policy experts, clinicians, activists, and world leaders gathered in Vienna, Austria, this week for the 18th International AIDS Conference, the world’s largest meeting devoted to the epidemic. Human rights of people living with and at risk for HIV have been a key theme this year, along with the need for more funding to expand prevention and treatment.
M
Shrinking budgets We are “nowhere near delivery” on the 2005 commitment by the G8 countries to adequately fund treatment by 2010, said conference co-chair and International AIDS Society President Julio Montaner. The number of people with HIV receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) worldwide increased by 25 percent last year, to just over 5 million, but 10 million require treatment, according to the latest epidemiological figures.
▼
page 16
Rick Gerharter
M
page 10
Rick Gerharter
any California Democrats are supportive of a November ballot initiative to legalize marijuana even as state party leaders voted to remain neutral on the measure. Proposition 19 San Francisco – the Regulate, Democratic Party Control and Tax Chair Aaron Peskin Cannabis Act of 2010 – would regulate marijuana in a way similar to alcohol, allowing people 21 and over to pos-
Activists take over the stage during the opening ceremonies of the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna Sunday, July 18.
▼
by Seth Hemmelgarn
IGLHRC Project would recall SOMA alley’s gay sexual heyday wins UN battle I F
page 16
▼
ollowing a grueling last-minute push, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission won consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council on July 19. After three years of opposition at the committee level, IGLHRC, with a strong assist from the U.S. government, managed to circumvent the obstructionist committee by moving the decision on its status Cary Alan Johnson directly to the full ECOSOC, where the vote was 23-13. There were 13 abstentions and five absences. IGLHRC becomes the 10th LGBT organization to have successfully outgunned U.N. homophobes and achieved consultative status. “Today’s decision is an affirmation that the voices of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people have a place at the United Nations as a part of a vital civil society community,” Cary Alan Johnson, IGLHRC’s executive director, said in a statement hailing the vote. Of its long-running battle at the committee level, IGLHRC said: “Despite full compliance with all procedures, IGLHRC faced deferrals, homophobic questioning, and procedural roadblocks in the
t has been years since gay men cruised Ringold Alley in San Francisco’s South of Market District for sex late at night. But that infamous past for the short stretch of street could be recalled under a project being pursued by transit and city planners. The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is seeking the public’s input on what types of small-scale street modifications they would like to see made to the alley, which runs between 8th and 9th streets half a block from Harrison Street. It is part of a push to reanimate SOMA’s forgotten, seedy alleyways into vibrant, safe corridors for residents. In conjunction with the streetscape changes, backers of designating parts of western SOMA as an LGBTQ social heritage district would like to see Ringold Alley’s historical role in the city’s gay community be incorporated into the project. Ideas stem from laying historical markers along the street to referencing the leather lifestyle, which is centered in SOMA, in the designs for new streetlamps and paving. “One of the things already proposed was a historical walking path with a series of plaques recognizing historic sites. Ringold would be included in that,” said Jim Meko, a gay man who chairs the Western SOMA Citizens Planning Task Force, which is overseeing development of the new zoning changes for the area. Meko also is running for supervisor in District 6, which includes SOMA. Prior to the AIDS crisis, the out-of-the-way alley served as the go-to place to have sex after the numerous gay bars along Folsom Street – then known as the “Miracle Mile” – closed for the night. Most major cities had an area dubbed a “merry-go-round,” a sort of outdoor sexual market where gay and closeted men would gather to engage in public sex. “When you would go to a new city the thing to do is get on the highest parcel of ground and
•••FIRST
OF
Leathermen at the Ringold Alley Fair in 1985.
look down. When you would see an area that had car lights forming a circular path at two in the morning, you had found the gay area of the city,” said Meko. “In San Francisco it was Ringold Alley.” Up until the 1990s the alley continued to play a major role in San Francisco’s leather and gay SOMA scenes. Sunday’s (July 25) outdoor fetish festival known as the Up Your Alley Fair began 25 years ago in 1985 as the Ringold Alley Fair. “Nocturnal bliss was transformed into a daytime celebration – a community coming out fully into the open and taking over a public space to demonstrate not only its erotic pleasures but also its united strength (and sense of humor) in helping each other in face of a crisis,” states a written history about the event posted to the Folsom Street Events website. Following its second year, though, the fair’s
TWO
growing popularity forced organizers to relocate it. The event moved to Dore Alley and Folsom in 1987. “Ringold is a residential ally, and the neighbors, while tolerating dead-in-the-night activity, did not take kindly to this sudden explosion of leather and fetish men and women on their street. They successfully petitioned the city and the SFPD to rescind the granting of a license for a third year,” states the fair’s online history. The advent of the Internet, and with it, men’s ability to find anonymous sex partners online, made Ringold Alley obsolete. Today the one-way street is hardly a site to behold. Its buildings are a mix of residential and light industrial spaces. Its sidewalks are often pockmarked with dog poop, and the only routine traffic it receives is from people patronizing a car
SECTIONS•••
page 13
▼
by Rex Wockner
Courtesy GLBT Historical Society Archive
by Matthew S. Bajko