How San Francisco Celebrates Love and Families in All Their Diversity- Part 1
By: Geri Spieler
Tags: LGBTQ, San Francisco Values, Diversity And Inclusion, San Francisco, Same Sex Marriage

How San Francisco Celebrates Love and Families in All Their Diversity- Part 1 Geri Spieler Follow Oct 10 · 7 min read

Ian Taylor for Unsplash

How San Francisco Celebrates Love and Families in All Their Diversity- Part 1

Sexuality is an issue that touches every person alive. Our conception is a sexual act, and most societies have rules or norms that set boundaries on sexual behavior. The linking of two people together through marriage is found in societies across the globe. Incest is a common taboo. Human bodies mature to enable sexual relations, and our hormones drive the desire for sexuality — more or less strongly — in most all of us. And our values governing sexual behavior are deeply embedded in us, by our societal groups, and particularly by our religious groups, from a very young age.

The right for all people to express their sexuality as they choose, as long as it is consensual, is an important value in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We can often trace a country’s shifting values through its media. America’s viewpoint has changed over the years, moving toward an increasing acceptance of LGBTQ relationships.

Here are three (out of many) examples that reflect the growing acceptance of those dynamics across America:

Studies and polls also show that same-sex marriage is, happily, an issue where American values have been catching up with San Francisco values.

Both the Pew Research Center and the Gallup Poll have very consistent numbers in polls on the subject. Pew’s 2019 report includes:

• Americans opposed same-sex marriage by a margin of 60% to 31% in 2004.

• Support for same-sex marriage has steadily grown over the past 15 years. Polling in 2019 shows that a majority of Americans (61%) support same-sex marriage, while 31% oppose it.

• Among people who are religiously unaffiliated, a solid majority have supported same-sex marriage since 2004, with 79% saying that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

• About two-thirds of white mainline Protestants (66%) now support same-sex marriage, as do a similar share of Catholics (61%).

• Support for same-sex marriage among white evangelical Protestants remains lower than it is among other religious groups. However, the share of white evangelical Protestants who support same-sex marriage has grown from 11% in 2004 to 29% today.

• 75% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents and 44% of Republicans and Republican leaners favor same-sex marriage.

• 66% of women and 57% of men support same-sex marriage. 62% of whites support same-sex marriage, as do 58% of Hispanics and 51% of blacks.

• The United States is one of 29 countries and jurisdictions allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed.

Gallup reports very similar figures, with 63% of Americans saying same-sex marriage should be legal. When Gallup first polled on the question in 1996, just over a quarter of Americans said it should be legal.

Some religions have labeled same-sex relationships as evil and have tried to export that belief so as to impose it on all of society. The extensive campaign run by the Mormon Church against California’s 2008 same-sex marriage referendum is one well-documented example of that.

One counter-position is that marriage and other partnered relationships are a civil issue rather than a religious one.

In San Francisco, the value is that, as human beings, we each and all have the personal freedom to live, to love, and to worship or not worship as we choose. San Francisco values don’t impose political or religious bounds on any person’s right to express their own humanity, their own sexual identity, and their freedom to love others as they choose. In sum, the ethos is: “I respect your right to worship and to love as you choose, and I similarly expect you to respect mine.”

Today, majorities of most groups support gay marriage — with the exception of adults aged 65 and older (47%) and Republicans (44%). And regionally, the South remains the least supportive of same-sex marriages, though a growing majority (57%) now supports it. At least 60% of those polled also say that gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable.

FiveThirtyEight.com reports similar figures: A majority of black people (52%), Hispanics (61%), and white people (63%) back same-sex marriage. The majority of people in all but six states support it. And even in those six states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia — only in Alabama are opponents an outright majority. Strangely enough, the headline on this report focused on saying: “Support for Same-Sex Marriage Isn’t Unanimous.”

Fox News has also recognized reality on this topic. In 2018, the conservative media leader reported: “For the first time in a Fox News poll, a majority says same-sex marriage should be legal.” Their figures lag other pollsters, yet even they show 54% of registered voters favor legalizing same-sex marriage, with 35% opposed.

Another note on America’s evolving values relates to Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay elected official in California; he served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors until his assassination in 1978.

Milk had graduated from officer training and served as a diving officer on a submarine rescue ship during the Korean War. However, after his superiors caught him in a park that was popular with gay men, his sexual orientation was questioned, and he was forced to resign from the US Navy.

In July 2019, Terminal 1 at San Francisco Airport reopened after a major renovation, and it was named the Harvey Milk Terminal. Even more of a smile emerges upon learning that, in December 2019, the navy announced that it is building a ship that is to be named after him.

Milk strongly encouraged gay and lesbian men and women to come out of the closet. His perspective was that once people realize that it is their child, their uncle, their granddaughter, their congregation member at church, or a parent of a kid who plays on the same ball team that their kid plays on, windows of tolerance would open more quickly. He also wanted to see the burden of silence and hiding lifted from the souls of these good people. In 1978, he said,

“Gay brothers and sisters, you must come out. Come out to your parents. I know that it is hard and will hurt them, but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives. Come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors, to your fellow workers, to the people who work where you eat and shop. Come out only to the people you know, and who know you, not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths. Destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake.”

San Francisco’s history of toleration wasn’t unblemished. Even though it was illegal in the 1960s to be cross-dressed in public, members of the cross-dressing and transgendered communities, including a number of prostitutes, would come together in the late nights and early mornings in the Tenderloin, notably at Compton’s Cafeteria on Taylor Street, to socialize, share stories, and have coffee. It was a tight-knit social setting, whose members looked out for each other.

While heavy police enforcement of the cross-dressing ban wasn’t the rule, it was known that the police on the Tenderloin beat made extra money by regularly shaking down Compton’s owners and/or the individuals there, and, on occasion, roughing them up or hauling them in for a night in jail.

In August 1966, a police raid, complete with a paddy wagon, arrived at Compton’s. One of the patrons, tired of being hassled and manhandled yet again, threw a cup of hot coffee into a cop’s face, and an all-out riot began in the shop.

Demonstrations and some further riots for transgender rights were fomented in the summer of 1966, as drag queens and their supporters poured into the streets and fought back with their high heels and heavy bags. There was limited press coverage of these events outside of the Bay Area at that time.

San Francisco values have evolved since 1966 to embrace those who find their gender in question or romantically love someone of the same sex. These values are held high, and there is now much support that the city offers. A number of churches, like the Glide Memorial Methodist Church in San Francisco, were leaders in reaching out to offer support to the transgender community.

In June 1969, similar riots unfolded in New York City’s Greenwich Village, in response to a police raid on the gay Stonewall Inn. These better-publicized New York demonstrations are generally portrayed as the major impetus for the public battle for LGBTQ rights in the United States and internationally.

This battle, as with many other social movements in America, flowed from the West Coast to the East Coast, and then to the heartland of the country. In April 1970, Chicago’s LGBTQ community organized to fight persecution with pickets and protests in front of the Normandy Inn, where arrests of people dancing with members of the same gender were being made with the charge of “public indecency.” The protesters’ banners and leaflets called for “the right to dance any tempo, any style.” Within two weeks, the club’s owners were able to get a license for same-sex dancing.

While two-thirds of Americans now support same-sex marriage, it is still an issue for some.