top
San Francisco
San Francisco
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

Protest Posters Comparing White and Wiener Irk San Francisco City Officials

by nude in sf
Posters displayed by activists at a Castro holiday tree lighting event meet with harsh criticism from San Francisco Supervisors and others who find the comparison of a currently serving elected official to a former supervisor-turned-assassin reprehensible.
800_scottkilledaa1800pxl.jpg
The provocative signs had quotes from two supervisors past and present, and images of the two men printed side-by-side on posters that several activists at the recent holiday tree lighting in the Castro displayed to the displeasure of many in the crowd.

The posters featured black-and-white pictures of former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White from 1978 and current Supervisor Scott Wiener from 2012. The quotes read as follows: 1978: "I see naked men walking around which doesn't bother me as far as my personal standards of nudity but it's just not proper", SF Supervisor Dan White. 2012: "I don't have a problem with nudity in general, but it's just not proper to expose your genitals on the street corner for hours and hours", SF Supervisor Scott Wiener.

Outspoken activist and film producer Mitch Hightower, and other nudity ban opponents, displayed the signs while another well known activist shouted messages with a bull horn. Speeches from media-seeking politicians were completely drowned out by statements made through the bull horn, as it seemed to provide better amplification than the sound system that was available for the illustrious elected officials and other guest speakers. The local business association was not amused, as they had sponsored the event which was designed to promote shopping, dining and drinking in the neighborhood.

"Comparing the supervisor to a murderer is absurd", one onlooker quipped, "these people are retarded".

'We're here, we're queer, and we're not going shopping", was one of the messages delivered via the bull horn by long-time activist and popular blogger Michael Petrelis.

"A holiday tree lighting is not an appropriate place for a demonstration", barked someone from the crowd.

Former supervisor and current homeless czar Bevan Dufty attended the event along with his family. Daughter Sydney, who was hoisted on Dufty's shoulders, turned to the activists and said, "Housing, not nudity bans".

Photographers from the local LGBT tabloid known as the Bay Area Reporter, took pictures of the signage and subsequently distributed the images to members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

"This is offensive", stated Supervisor Christina Olague, who voted no on the nudity ban legislation. She suggested that "personal attacks" were counterproductive. Olague had previously questioned the need for the nudity ban and said, "This is a solution looking for a problem".

Supervisor David Campos, who also voted no on the ban commented to the BAR that the conduct of Mr. Hightower was "reprehensible". Suggesting that the posters were politically incorrect, at the least, and deserving of rebuke, censure or other public admonishment. During a recent BOS meeting, Campos had challenged the need for a city-wide nudity ban to the chagrin of his colleague Wiener.

Attorney Christina DiEdoardo, who represents Mr. Hightower, as well as three other plaintiffs in a Federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the nudity ban, agreed to comment on the posters. When asked if she thought the posters were unfair she responded, "The signs accurately stated quotes from both former Supervisor Dan White and current Supervisor Scott Wiener regarding their agreement about how free expression such as nudity needed to be suppressed. The flame of the First Amendment--and liberty more generally--will only burn as long as there are brave San Franciscans like Mr. Hightower who are willing to tend and build it through the kindle of public debate like this. If Supervisor Wiener can't stand the heat of being held accountable for his ongoing efforts to restrict the freedom and civil rights of San Franciscans, he should change his behavior or get out of the supervisorial kitchen."

Civil rights activist and award-winning author Clinton Fein disclosed that the posters are, "Irking all of the right people".

Comments on several Facebook message threads about the posters were mixed.

"This is bulls--t", one FB user posted, "You can't f--king compare the current supervisor to an assassin".

A FB user replied, "Supervisor Wiener has assassinated tolerance in the Castro, this is a perfectly legitimate and applicable comparison".

Another user remarked, "I don't like this comparison one bit. But I have to say the similarities in the quotes are interesting at the least and this does seem to be rather thought provoking".

"Can I have copies of these graphics so I can print and paste posters all over the city", was a request posted on a political blog.

"Mitch Hightower thinks he is the next Larry Flint", read another Facebook posting.

Well known nudist activist and former San Francisco mayoral candidate George Davis held one of the signs during the tree lighting event. Afterward he commented, "A lot of people under fifty don't know who Dan White is".

When asked if he had gone too far, Hightower stated, "The signs speak for themselves. They were designed to create controversy and induce dialog. It's been even more successful than we hoped".

Attorney DiEdoardo concluded, "If we have learned nothing else from a panoply of Republican sex scandals
through the years, it is that politicians with a secret to keep frequently come down the hardest on those who openly embrace behaviors they abhor. Supervisor Weiner may be 'out of the closet', but in my view he remains dangerous to freedom for residents of the Castro and of San Francisco more generally based on his belief that he has the right to ban behavior protected by both the federal and state constitutions because he
personally finds it 'inappropriate' ."

Read the article about this topic on the Bay Area Reporter web site go here: http://ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=68312
§Wiener White Protest Signs
by nude in sf
800_wienerdanwhiteposter4verticle800pxl.jpg
Provocative posters were displayed at a recent public event in the Castro and drew "boos" from event attendees and harsh comments from city officials.
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by dougas in the castro
scott wiener is a rare politician listening to his constitutuents, of which i am one. i live in the castro and i think supervisor weiner is doing a super job so far. mitch hightower, whose work seems to be selling online porn, doesn't live in the castro. gypsy taub, an ex-stripper, doesn't live in the castro. as for michael petrelis, i have to wonder if he is severely bi-polar or if a virus has metastasized to his brain. this community, this country and this world still have so many problems including housing needs, homeless, wealth inequity, increased government surveillance, corporations and lobbyists overly influencing government and yet these attention-starved jerks (hightower, petrelis and taub) keep shining the lights on themselves. the progressive moment, the occupy movement, the lgbt movement and even people for clothing optional lifestyles need to distance themselves from these jerks. they are falsely representing themselves under these banners.
This writer, a native San Franciscan who can easily remember the assassination of Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978 by former supervisor and former cop Dan White, loves these posters and hopes they will be at every campaign forum when Supervisor Wiener has to face the voters again. Supervisor Wiener has distinguished himself in being a leader of the Fascist Majority on the Board of Supervisors. His accomplishments includes not only promoting the political witchhunt that is any clothing code with his banning of nudity of all people ages 5 and up citywide, but also of his constant attacks on the workingclass including his opposition to free bus passes to workingclass school children who have no school bus and do not go to neighborhood schools and thus must take a city bus. If they are caught not paying a fare, the city has transit police give them a ticket which their poor parents have to somehow pay. The school children do not have time to wait for this backward country to put butter before guns, abolish the military and turn swords into plowshares. They need to go to school today. The fact is, the city can find the money for a multi-million dollar Central Subway no one needs or wants, but somehow they have trouble finding money for daily transit needs. That lie does not fly. Fortunately, the money has been found and the legislation passed, in spite of Fascist Wiener. He also led the vicious political frame-up of our beloved Sheriff Mirkarimi. The clothing code aka nudity ban is nothing more than a program of the real estate industry to gentrify San Francisco. Banning nudity among children ages 5, 6, 7 and 8 is a sure sign that this nudity ban has nothing to do with nudity and everything to do with a political witchhunt of his political opponents in San Francisco.

As to tree lighting ceremonies, they are all illegal on public land as they violate the Constitution's church-state separation mandate in celebrating a religious holiday. No public official has any business attending these business promotionals for The Money Season, violating their own oath of office to uphold the Constitution.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors could today house all of the homeless in all the empty apartments which they could take over by right of eminent domain. To spend our tax dollars on clothing codes-nudity bans is criminal. The smugness of the Fascist Majority on the Board of Supervisors who voted for this nudity ban is a sign that labor is weak in San Francisco. We need to see lots more opposition to the anti-labor policies of election fraud Mayor Lee and his Fascist Majority on the Board of Supervisors currently led by Supervisor Wiener.
by Harvey Milk Fan
STOP the San Francisco public nudity ban! Donate on the crowd-funding page to help offset the legal expenses. THANK YOU! https://rally.org/stopthesanfrancisconudityban
by Dan Branson
As to tree lighting ceremonies, they are all illegal on public land as they violate the Constitution's church-state separation mandate in celebrating a religious holiday. No public official has any business attending these business promotionals for The Money Season, violating their own oath of office to uphold the Constitution.

The above statement is nothing but a fucking lie repeated by stupid leftist God haters.

Show me in the constitution where that mandate is. There is absolutely nothing in the constitution that talks to separation of church and state. It simply states that congress shall make no law that establishes a religion nor will it prohibit the free exercise of religion.

by .r
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2013552536_portland30m.html
"PORTLAND — FBI undercover operatives helped fund Mohamed Osman Mohamud's would-be terrorism plot to detonate a car bomb during a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony on Friday at a crowded public square in the heart of the city.

Operatives helped him find components needed to create a bomb and schooled the 19-year-old Somali-born man in how to set off the explosives.

The sting operation enabled the FBI to amass a formidable amount of details about what a grand-jury indictment Monday charged was Mohamud's attempt to use a car bomb as a "weapon of mass destruction.""
by Had enough
There is no supreme being to hate. Science means knowledge; religion is superstition; evolution is a fact; abortion is a right, gay marriage is a civil right; there is no supreme being as labor creates all wealth.

There is no representative democracy in a society which puts the profit motive first. There is certainly no representative democracy in San Francisco. The people of San Francisco, especially the voters, overwhelmingly oppose the Navy's Blue Death flights over heavily populated San Francisco during Columbus Genocide Weekend as all public sentiment petitions presented to the Board of Supervisors demonstrate, yet the Democratic Party, the party of the entire of Board of Supervisors, is a proud supporter of this criminal act, endangering our lives, causing deafening noise and wasting tax dollars and oil to glorify war in an admitted military recruiting show.

Sometimes the courts act as a check and balance and this matter is now in court, so this waste of our tax dollars known as a Clothing Code is on hold, and if it is ever allowed, is totally unenforceable as the police cannot be everywhere at once. IT IS ALSO NOT SOLELY DIRECTED AT OLD MEN IN THE CASTRO SHOWING OFF THEIR PATHETIC BODIES. It is citywide and applies to everyone ages 5 and up. Perhaps the readers of this website are unaware but children ages 5, 6, 7 and 8 are not physically mature. The police code ordinance and comments is at
http://www.sfbos.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/bdsupvrs/bosagendas/materials/bag112012_120984.pdf

On page 2, it states:
"A person may not expose his or her genitals, perineum or anal region on any public street, sidewalk, street median, parklet or plaza, or in any transit vehicle, station, platform, or stop of any government operated transit system in the City and County of San Francisco."
"The provisions of this chapter shall not apply to (1) any person under age of 5 years or (2) any permitted parade, fair or festival held under a City or other government issued permit."

This kind of broad bill can only be a political witchhunt.

The fact is, nudity is not a major problem in San Francisco. HOMELESSNESS IS THE NUMBER ONE CRISIS AND THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS REFUSES TO USE OUR TAX DOLLARS TO TAKE OVER EMPTY APARTMENTS BY RIGHT OF EMINENT DOMAIN TO HOUSE THE HOMELESS. The money certainly exists in the form of the entire trigger happy and perhaps soon taser happy police department, which could be shut down and have all funds transferred to the human services departments. We could also cut all the executive salaries over $200,000 to $200,000 a year among city employees, and transfer that money to the housing fund. AND ABOVE ALL, WE COULD TAKE ALL THE MONEY BEING USED FOR THE PALM-GREASING, UNNECESSARY AND POSSIBLY DISASTROUS CENTRAL SUBWAY AND TRANSFER THAT TO THE HOUSING FUND.

The church-state separation mandate is well-established in American law and the dispute over tree-lighting ceremonies is long-standing. This mandate is more fully discussed at
http://www.theocracywatch.org/separation_church_state2.htm

You can read all about the long-standing Christmas tree on public property controversy at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_controversy

It is noteworthy that the people who are screaming loudest in defense of the illegal tree lighting and the political witchhunt aka nudity ban are also proud anti-Communists, screaming defenders of gambling rackets, such as "sports" teams to make their millionaire owners richer and anti-Moslem political scapegoaters.

We need to build a united front against the many reactionary policies of Supervisor Scott Wiener. These are the policies of the Democratic-Republican Party. If you want anything to get better, you have to vote for Peace & Freedom Party or the Green Party.
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network