Gay Shame Puts Newsom and Dufty on the Stand

MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR RELEASE IMMEDIATELY

Contacts:
Mary Magdalene: (415)756-3029
Mary Kay: (415) 336-2360
For Legal Questions: Dennis Cunningham (415) 285-8091

SAN FRANCISCO SUPERVISOR AND MAYORAL CANDIDATE
GAVIN NEWSOM SUBPOENAED TO APPEAR IN COURT!

September 30, 2003, San Francisco- Topic: Supervisors
Gavin Newsom and Bevan Dufty were presented with
subpoenas to appear in court starting on October 10th
(incidentally also Supe Newsom’s Birthday!). The two
supervisors were served this afternoon in City Hall as
they were exiting a Transportation Services Committee
Meeting. Newsom and Dufty were present last February 6
when police officers brutalized and arrested peaceful
queer protesters outside the Lesbian Gay Bisexual
Transgender Community Center. On that evening, Gay
Shame protestors in festive attire were handing out
flyers, and were ironically denied entrance to their
own Center by the SFPD. According the police reports,
officers told Newsom that he and Kimberly should enter
the building in the back, away from the protesters.
Newsom insisted they enter by the front door, which
necessitated a police escort. A squad of SFPD officers
escorted Gavin and Kimberly Newsom, straight
conservatives, into the building and then immediately
began attacking queer protestors. Violent SFPD officers
threw one person face-first into oncoming traffic, put
another into a choke-hold until he passed out, and
bludgeoned one woman so hard in the face that blood
poured out of her mouth and one of her teeth was
shattered. The spectacle of queer protesters being
bashed outside of the San Francisco LGBT Center, as
Center staff, the Newsoms, Supervisor Bevan Dufty and
gay politicos looked on (and did not intervene), was
not lost on local and national media.

Four protestors were arrested in the February police
riot outside the LGBT Center, and faced ludicrous
felony charges (after serving jail time of up to 60
hours). Most of the original charges have been dropped
under intense public pressure, but four protestors
still face misdemeanor counts of Resisting Arrest. How,
one might ask, can peaceful demonstrators be charged
with Resisting Arrest if they are not charged with any
other crime? The answer is that clearly these charges
are politically motivated as Gavin Newsom attempts to
sweep to power with strong-arm tactics.

GAY SHAME is a Virus in the System. We are committed
to a queer extravaganza that brings direct action to
astounding levels of theatricality. We will not be
satisfied with a commercialized gay identity that
denies the intrinsic links between queer struggle and
challenging power. We seek nothing less than a new
queer activism that foregrounds race, class, gender,
and sexuality, to counter the self-serving "values" of
gay consumerism and the increasingly hypocritical left.
We are dedicated to fighting the rabid assimilationist
monster with a devastating mobilization of queer
brilliance. GAY SHAME is a celebration of resistance:
all are welcome.