S.A.M.E. Hosts Victory Celebration for Marriage Equality Protesters (tags)
The San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality (S.A.M.E.) held a victory celebration September 21 at the Bamboo Lounge in Hillcrest after San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith dropped all charges against the Equality Nine, protesters who were arrested at the San Diego County Clerk's office August 19, 2010 for showing up to request marriage licenses or support others doing so, including same-sex couples who had appointments. The event featured five of the Equality Nine and also Queer-rights pioneers Leo Laurence and Pat Brown, who led militant Queer-liberation demonstrations in San Francisco months before the Stonewall riots.
“EQUALITY NINE VICTORY CELEBRATION” AT BAMBOO LOUNGE IN HILLCREST SEPTEMBER 21 (tags)
San Diego's Queer community is celebrating the end of the Equality Nine case Friday, September 21, 7 to 9 p.m. at the Bamboo Lounge, 1475 University Avenue in Hillcrest. After having criminal charges hanging over their heads for more than two years, the six remaining members of the Equality Nine are finally free thanks to the city dismissing the case in late August.
Queer Liberation Started in San Francisco, Not Stonewall (tags)
The legend says America's — and the world's — Queer liberation movement began with the riot at the Stonewall Inn bar in New York City in June 1969. But three months before, militant Queer activists in San Francisco had launched the Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF) and mounted the first-ever picket against a private employer for discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. Leo Laurence and Pat Brown, two veterans of that movement, brought their story to Activist San Diego June 16.
It Didn't All Start at Stonewall! Meet Two Pioneers of Queer Liberation Jan. 15 (tags)
Three months before the Stonewall Inn riots in New York city in June 1969 which are commonly — but wrongly — thought to be the start of the Gay liberation movement, a group of Gay activists in San Francisco started the nation’s first Gay Liberation Front. Two of those activists, Leo E. Laurence and Pat Brown, now live in San Diego and will be speaking Monday, January 15, 7 p.m. at the Joyce Beers Community Center in Hillcrest in an event sponsored by Activist San Diego.
Yet Another Gay/Queer ?History? Book Perpetuates Old Myths (tags)
Yet another so-called ?Gay history? book, Michael Bronski?s ?A Queer History of the United States,? recycles the tired New York-centric myth that the Queer Liberation movement sprung full-blown from the Stonewall Inn riots in New York City. Leo E. Laurence, who was present at the REAL creation of Queer liberation in San Francisco in March 1969, three months BEFORE Stonewall, comments on Bronski?s book and offers Lambda Literary Award finalist Gale Whittington?s ?Beyond Normal? as an accurate source for the real birth of Gay Lib.
Gay Liberation DIDN’T Begin at Stonewall!!! (tags)
The commercial interests who have taken over the Queer rights movement have a vested interest in promoting the myth that it all started with the riots at the Stonewall Inn bar in New York City in June 1969. But a group of activists who were present at the REAL foundation of Gay Liberation in San Francisco in early 1969 are coming together in an organization called "Project History" to set the record straight. Leo Laurence, Gale Whittington and Pat Brown are active in a project that will, among other things, reclaim the Queer movement's radical history and its alignments with the Black Panther Party and other militant Left groups of the time.