GAYS BASHED AT GAY CENTER -- GAY SHAME PRESS RELEASE

Gavin Newsom Brings Police Brutality to Gay Center

Urgent Update — February 7, 2003

When Gavin Newsom reaches out to the gay community, he does it with the fist of the law.

Police attacked a crowd of peaceful protestors outside the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Community Center last night just as mayoral fruntrunner Gavin Newsom arrived to host a fundraiser for the center.

Whose Community? Whose Center?

Members of the community organization Gay Shame had gathered outside the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Community Center to say “shame!” on Gavin Newsom for his notorious anti-homeless policies, as well as on the Center for its cynical attempt to cozy up to the conservative mayoral frontrunner. By holding an event with Gavin Newsom, the Center revealed who its real community was — and who got left out. At $125, tickets for this fundraiser cost more than twice the monthly income of San Francisco’s neediest under Newsom’s new “Care Not Cash” plan. Shouldn’t a community center serve those who don’t have space elsewhere? Shouldn’t it serve those who are most in need?

The gay community needs homes and health care, not just another place to dance and drink. Gays and lesbians have been on the guestlist in San Francisco for twenty years — but we’ve forgotten the people we met while waiting in line! What good is our place at the table if we can’t object to the table manners that kept us out in the first place?

There is no care in “Care Not Cash”!

Newsom created “Care Not Cash”, a cynical ballot initiative which passed last November. Under Care Not Cash, monthly general assistance checks for the city’s neediest will be slashed from $320 per month to a miserly $59, with the difference made up in vouchers for services (like shelters and treatment programs) that don’t exist! What’s more, Gavin’s plan included no money to start these programs! By taking away money that people need to survive, Care Not Cash will actually increase the number of people on the streets. Many won’t be able to afford the pay-as-you-go SRO housing that’s been keeping them out of the rain — and they’ll be even more desperate than they are now. “Care Not Cash” should be called “Scare And Bash”!

“Toward the end of our peaceful protest, we tried to follow Gavin Newsom into the center,” explained a demonstrator. “As we approached the door, the SFPD rushed towards us, hitting us with their police batons as the center’s communications director looked on.” When protestors joined hands to calm the situation and let the police know they were safe, the police burst into the crowd and began arresting protestors right and left. During this attack, one protestor was hit in the face with a police baton. Blood streaming down her face, she left for the hospital with a shattered tooth and lip. Four protestors were arrested, two of whom were thrown face down into the street and dragged over concrete to the police wagons.

We are forced to ask:

Will this be Newsom’s San Francisco?


Gay Shame Press Inquiries: 415-794-4393