Openly gay Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Nov. 7, 1977. It was a momentous moment in American history and helped open once closed doors to other LGBT leaders and professionals which no doubt improved lives far beyond San Francisco. The fortieth anniversary of Milk’s election afforded us the opportunity…
Selective suppression of free speech has reached a level of violence unsurpassed in our country. In April 2013, the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee announced Chelsea, formerly Bradley, Manning as Grand Marshal of city’s 2013 Pride Parade. Manning was in prison awaiting trial for disclosing hundreds of thousands of classified government documents to the…
The Unabomber miniseries on The Discovery Channel has brought back uneasy 1994 memories. Unabomber Ted Kaczynski had sent 14 bombs by the end of 1993 and another deadly bomb in December 1994. I was a government official in the summer of 1994 when Republican North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms (1921-2008) bashed me in a speech…
I was among 175 constituents at a breakfast hosted by Sen. Dianne Feinstein June 14 when she announced the shooting at an Alexandria, Va., baseball park. The few details she had were the shooter targeted Republican members of Congress who were practicing for a congressional baseball game and many shots were fired. My mind flashed…
During my eight year assignment in Silicon Valley, I had the opportunity to meet former San Francisco City Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver. Silver served in San Francisco City Hall from 1978 to 1989 and served with Supervisor Harvey Milk. Silver was a fearless political ally of Milk and she has a role in the Milk…
The fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? is important reading after a presidential election marred by political violence, scandalous published campaign emails, allegations of sexual scandal that rocked both political parties and both presidential candidates, and cringing campaign statements by both presidential candidates that…
This is the time of year to reflect on health with September Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, October both LGBT History Month and National Bullying Prevention Month, and with World Mental Health Day Oct. 10, Coming Out Day Oct. 11, Mental Health Awareness Week Oct. 2-8, Oct. 6 as National Depression Screening Day, and Oct. 15…
Various off putting and discriminatory terms have been used in employment interviews to indicate management disapproval of a candidate. For example, a young professional woman may be asked if her husband would allow her to take business travel with male colleagues. Of course, there is always the pregnancy question of a professional woman and that…
In 2013 the Corporate Equality Index named Wells Fargo the “Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality.” The CEI gave Wells Fargo a “perfect score” on its index “for the 11th consecutive year.” This leads me to wonder if corporate corruption is included in the Corporate Equality Index. One must wonder how many LGBT crooks…
As a former resident of San Francisco and of Alabama in the era of racial segregation I feel qualified to speak on the sanctuary city issue. At present there are over 200 sanctuary cities in the United States that refuse to enforce federal immigration law. There are other cities and states who refuse to endorse…
