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SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - As California recalls the catastrophic earthquake that struck San Francisco 100 years ago, seismologists warn that the golden state's love of cars could turn into a fatal attraction in the quake-prone state. Elevated freeways, highway overpasses, and garages built under homes are vulnerable to crashing down when the earth shudders, said seismologist Jack Boatwright of the US Geological Survey. "The automobile culture is really a knife in the heart of earthquake preparedness," Boatwright told AFP. "We are only as strong as our weakest overpass." Another key weakness is structural, including building code oversights exposed by the...

An Oakland man is dead and another man is seriously injured after both were shot early Saturday morning outside San Francisco's Coit Tower. Police found Juan Bauza, 27, of Oakland dead inside a car that had crashed off Telegraph Hill Boulevard, which leads up to Coit Tower. A 20-year-old man, who had been shot multiple times, was knocking on doors in the area until someone answered and called 911. That victim is being treated at San Francisco General Hospital for multiple life-threatening gunshot wounds. San Francisco police are looking for three or four men in their late teens or early...

A San Francisco finance manager stopped in at a Mission District cafe and was tapping on his laptop as he enjoyed his coffee just before noon on a Thursday. Suddenly, he was under siege. "I looked up, and I saw this guy leaning into me as if he was asking a question,'' he said. "I leaned forward, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone fiddling with the computer cord. I tried to stand up, and as I stepped back, he stabbed me in the chest.'' The attack marked a violent turn in a wave of crime...

At the risk of being called a gay basher or homophobic by pro-gay advocates, (probably not many in this blog), it is time to turn from being politically correct to becoming proactive against the spread of AIDS among one of the most vulnerable segments of the population: gay San Francisco males; furthermore, to risk being accused of doing the work of Satin, perhaps if society will not ban “bathhouses” then perhaps gay marriage is the lesser of two evils. In theory at least, a couple in a monogamous relationship is not as likely to contract HIV, as are those who...

New statistics suggest San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay men among major cities in the world, with a quarter of them HIV-positive, a top city health official said on Friday. "Despite an overall loss in the population in San Francisco in the last five years, we think there has been an absolute gain in gay men," William McFarland, head of HIV/AIDS statistics at San Francisco's Department of Public Health, said in an interview. "From all the data I have seen ... it's the gayest city in the world." McFarland has compiled the city's first survey in five years...

SAN FRANCISCO - Mayor Gavin Newsom said Thursday that The City will not comply with any federal legislation that criminalizes efforts to help illegal immigrants. The mayor also denounced a bipartisan congressional proposal that would beef up border security and allow as many as 12 million illegal immigrants to gain legal status. Newsom, who has not been afraid to wade into controversial national issues such as gay marriage, appeared with a group of elected officials on the steps of City Hall to support immigrants, “documented as well as undocumented.”Newsom also signed a resolution sponsored by Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval, and passed...

(AgapePress) - A resolution passed unanimously by San Francisco's Board of Supervisors has prompted a lawsuit alleging the city officials have launched a "startling attack" on the Catholic Church, its teachings and beliefs, and its adherents.On March 21, the Board of Supervisors voiced their approval of a resolution condemning Catholic moral teaching on homosexuality and urging the Archbishop of San Francisco and Catholic Charities of San Francisco to defy church directives prohibiting adoptions by homosexual households. According to the Thomas More Law Center, which has filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Catholic citizens of San Francisco and the...

ANN ARBOR, MI – A virulently anti-Catholic resolution unanimously passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors condemning Catholic moral teaching on homosexuality and urging the Archbishop of San Francisco and Catholic Charities of San Francisco to defy Church directives prohibiting gay adoptions has prompted a federal lawsuit by the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and two San Francisco Catholic citizens, challenges the anti-Catholic resolution as a “startling attack by government officials on the Catholic Church,...

(AgapePress) - An estimated 25,000 youths showed up last weekend for a "Battle Cry" rally in San Francisco -- and then became the latest targets to receive a resolution against them by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. "Battle Cry" is a coalition of 30 groups that is attempting to turn today's youth away from the lure of popular culture and toward Christ while they are still teenagers. But on the day of the rally in the City by the Bay, opposing protesters took to name-calling, in one instance chanting the phrase: "Christian fascists, go away! Racist, sexist, anti-gay!" In...

For an update on the firestorm in San Francisco over the ban on the adoption of children by gay couples and Catholic Charities, see this article by Valerie Schmalz. This is at Ignatius Press's online magazine Ignatius Insight.

Fault East of Bay Area 'Locked and Loaded' Saturday March 25, 2006 7:31 PM By SCOTT LINDLAW Associated Press Writer HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) - New cracks appear in Elke DeMuynck's ceiling every few weeks, zigzagging across her living room, creeping toward the fireplace, veering down the wall. Month after month, year after year, she patches, paints and waits. ``It definitely lets you know your house is constantly shifting,'' DeMuynck said. So do the gate outside that swings uselessly 2 inches from its latch, the strange bulges in the street and the geology students who make pilgrimages to her cul-de-sac. DeMuynck...

The San Francisco archdiocese is ending adoptions by homosexual couples through its Catholic Charities, a move that could jeopardize its public funding. The religious agency, which specializes in finding homes for hard-to-adopt children, has placed five children with same-sex couples since 2000, but Archbishop George Niederauer says there won't be any more, the San Francisco Chronicle said Tuesday. "These kinds of adoptions are not in sync with church teaching, and we've committed ourselves to being in sync with church teaching," a spokeswoman for the archbishop said. Last year, Catholic Charities received $800,000 from the state and $5 million from local...

San Francisco, Mar. 10 (CWNews.com) - The San Francisco archdiocese will review its current policy, which allows adoptions by same-sex couples, after receiving instructions from the Vatican on the subject. Ironically, the instructions from Rome came the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop William Levada, who was head of the San Francisco archdiocese when the adoption services run by Catholic Charities there placed adoptive children with same-sex couples. And to compound the irony, the reconsideration of that policy appears to have come as the result of inquiries from the Boston Globe, a paper that has...

Vatican prohibits placement with same-sex couples. The Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco could be forced to stop its adoption services because of an order from its former archbishop, Cardinal William Levada, who is now the second-in-command at the Vatican. The archdiocese received an e-mail this week from Levada stating, "Catholic agencies should not place children for adoption in homosexual households." In the past five years, under Levada's watch, five children out of 136 were adopted by same-sex couples through the San Francisco agency. "We are going to be looking at this, but I can't speculate what might...

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert J. Sandoval, who was one of the city's first openly gay prosecutors, has died. He was 56. Sandoval died Feb. 28 of a heart attack while being treated for leukemia at City of Hope Hospital, said Bill Martin, his partner of 23 years. Sandoval joined the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office in 1978 as part of an effort by then-City Attorney Burt Pines to recruit more gays and minorities. He was elected a commissioner of the Municipal Court in 1984 and became a Superior Court commissioner in 1997. Then-Gov. Gray Davis appointed him to...

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has spoken: President Bush must be impeached. It's a political earthquake that is shaking the establishment across the country. OK, maybe across San Francisco Bay, to Berkeley. Some critics of the president applauded the latest attempt by San Francisco's governing board to wade into Washington's affairs. Others rolled their eyes. "This should certainly force a special convening of Congress," San Francisco's Democratic Mayor, Gavin Newsom, said sarcastically. "I'm surprised the president himself didn't shorten his trip to India to deal with it." San Francisco this week became the biggest of the scattered left-coast bastions...

Mayor Gavin Newsom has a message for people concerned about his romantic relationship with a television actress and high-profile member of the Church of Scientology: relax. "I think the only thing to be concerned about is the absurdity of the whole thing and the fact that people would be taking these things so seriously,'' Newsom told reporters Thursday. "My gosh, folks,'' he said. "Relax. I'm a practicing Irish Catholic. I'm not a Scientologist, and I couldn't tell you two things about it.'" The practicing Catholic found himself in hot water with his church two years ago when he sanctioned...

San Francisco, California, boasts its own Human Rights Commission and bills itself as a bastion of tolerance, diversity and inclusion. It didn't quite work out that way when members of Falun Gong wanted to showcase their heritage in the 2006 Chinese New Year parade. They found themselves branded as a “homophobic cult” in the San Francisco Chronicle and banned from the parade. That led some observers to compare the San Francisco experience to what happens in the People's Republic of China, where Falun Gong is persecuted to the point of death. Falun Gong, literally, the “Law of the Wheel Breathing...

Gay Calif. Episcopal priests up for bishop Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Two openly gay priests are candidates to become bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, and the election of either could worsen the rift over homosexuality in the bitterly divided church. The Rev. Bonnie Perry of Chicago and the Very Rev. Robert Taylor of Seattle are among the five candidates. Both have longtime same-sex partners. The church has been torn over the issue of gay clergy since 2003, when the Rev. Gene Robinson, who has a longtime male partner, was elected bishop of New Hampshire. The following...

A gay man and a lesbian are on the short list to be the Bay Area's next Episcopal bishop, but many Episcopalians said the 77 million Anglicans worldwide might split permanently if a gay person is selected. The California Diocese's nomination of the two, along with three other candidates, defies the worldwide Anglican Communion's 2004 recommendation that the Episcopal Church in the United States put a moratorium on ordination of gay and lesbian bishops who are in active same-sex relationships. That order came after the Rev. Gene Robinson was appointed bishop in New Hampshire in 2003, the first Anglican bishop...