Free Republic

For all the talk of San Francisco values, a Chronicle analysis of how the city voted on the state's same-sex marriage ban shows a city geographically divided on the issue - and voting trends that turn San Francisco's typical political spectrum on its head.One in 4 San Franciscans voted in favor of Proposition 8, far fewer than the 52 percent who voted to ban same-sex marriage statewide. But a closer look shows race, age and education influenced voters more than anything else - even among those living in one of the world's most gay-friendly cities.Voters in 54 of San Francisco's...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Vandals have defaced a Holocaust memorial outside San Francisco’s Legion of Honor museum, painting swastikas inside a Star of David and on a granite plaque, authorities said. San Francisco police were notified of the vandalism at about 9 a.m. Wednesday when the swastika was found drawn in black marker on a bench in Lincoln Park, Lt. Neville Gittens said. ---snip--- Jill Manton, director of the city's $80 million collection of public art, said the Arts Commission deals with graffiti on many of its public installations, and that anti-Semitic graffiti has shown up on the memorial in Lincoln...

The First Congregational Church of Oakland made history Sunday, November 9 when an African American lesbian was installed as its new senior pastor. The Reverend Lynice Pinkard spoke briefly during the two and a half hour service, and in written remarks decried the passage last week of Proposition 8, which eliminated same-sex marriage in California. Pinkard, 46, formerly worked at the Ark of Refuge Church in San Francisco; she has been with First Congregational for six years. "It was horrific," Pinkard said of Prop 8's passage. "Rights have been eradicated." In a brief interview before the service, which also marked...

The Supreme Court is still pondering whether to permit fleeting expletives on the airwaves, but a San Francisco radio station isn’t waiting for the decision. A host on San Francisco’s top-rated KGO told his fans Tuesday that the station had fired him over comments he made a few days before the election about Joe Wurzelbacher, the suddenly famous unlicensed plumber who got caught up in the candidates’ tax policy debates

Election night was not kind to Gavin Newsom, who may end up one of the biggest losers after suffering a potentially crushing loss with Proposition 8 and at best breaking even in the local contests he had a stake in. Political analysts have long argued that Newsom has short coattails in local politics - a theory in play with the Board of Supervisors races, in which at least three of the seven seats up for grabs seem likely to go to candidates he did not endorse. With the local ballot measures, voters for the most part sided with Newsom's choices,...

Alameda, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Contra Costa and Marin Counties are expecting long lines again today for people wanting to vote early for the November 4 election. A record number of people are voting early this year. San Francisco Department of Elections reports that over 21% of registered voters for the November 4 election have already casts their ballots. This weekend lines have wrapped around county election offices with waits up to an hour to be able to vote. Offices will be open again today to handle the crowds of early voters.

<p>Imagine if John McCain had whispered somewhere that he was willing to bankrupt a major industry? Would this declaration not immediately be front page news? Well, Barack Obama actually flat out told the San Francisco Chronicle (SF Gate) that he was willing to see the coal industry go bankrupt in a January 17, 2008 interview. The result? Nothing. This audio interview has been hidden from the public...until now.</p>

KGO San Francisco Radio host Charles Karel Bouley (aka Karel) who, according to Wiki..., once played an audio of 'Ding-dong the Witch is Dead' as a 'tribute' to President Reagan upon his death and who wrote in a March 2007 article at the Huffington Post that White House spokesman Tony Snow's daily 'lying to the American people' caused his cancer, wants 'Joe the Plumber dead. During the 11-01-08 9PM Saturday broadcast of ABC national news, Karel, the local host can be heard over-talking the national news broadcast stating: "F*** GD Joe the GD Plumber!" "F*** him. F*** him." "I want...

(10-29) 20:13 PDT -- Note to same-sex couples wanting to marry by election day in case Proposition 8 passes: City Hall is completely booked for marriage licenses and ceremonies Friday, Monday and Tuesday. But there are plenty of places to wed under the deadline. Just ask Victor Andersen, a 27-year-old Redwood City resident and ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. Andersen converted a Victorian flat into the Heart of the Castro Wedding Chapel and opened for business the day after same-sex weddings became legal in California. He has married about 50 couples so far, from places as varied as...

As if San Francisco wasn't loopy enough, voters will be asked Tuesday to pass a ballot initiative, endorsed by the Democratic Party, that would bar police enforcing California's prostitution laws. The goal is to free up $11 million a year now spent collaring hookers so police can go after the real criminals: people who cook with trans fats; tote groceries in plastic bags, think bad thoughts about homosexuals, etc. If voters approve, hookers would enjoy the same special rights Frisco has bestowed upon illegal aliens, porn peddlers and medical-marijuana potheads. Among other things, a yes vote would increase prostitution, sex...

San Francisco voters may be confused about robo-calls and mailers from the San Francisco Democratic Club which endorse the exact opposite slate of candidates and measures that the San Francisco Democratic Party endorsed over the summer. Here's the story: The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, newly chaired by Supervisor Aaron Peskin, met in August to make its city endorsements. The group gave the nod to the most liberal candidates for supervisor and to some controversial measures including decriminalizing prostitution and embracing public power. Some Democrats were none too pleased and formed their own group called the San Francisco Democratic...

In the most liberal neighbourhood of America's most liberal city, it's possible to walk for blocks without seeing a single campaign sign declaring support for Barack Obama.But those Cindy Sheehan For Congress posters? They are displayed in the windows of bohemian coffee shops and Hispanic diners throughout the Mission District, a community that has long been an incubator for leftist politics and a place where the 2008 presidential election has sometimes been less interesting than the congressional battle being waged in their own backyard.Here in California's 8th District, the most powerful Democrat in Congress, Nancy Pelosi, is facing a...

Finding a pro-deregulation stance in the media is often tough, but when if it suits some far out cause against societal norms, don't rule it out. Sunny Hostin, CNN "American Morning" legal analyst, examined the pros and cons of a San Francisco ballot measure to be voted on next month called Proposition K. The measure would decriminalize prostitution. But Hostin said there was a case, not for decriminalized prostitution - which reportedly will save $11 million in municipal police spending - but for legalization, which she claimed would "boost the economy in these economic times." "I think the more valid...

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 20, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Today, the Cindy for Congress Campaign, dedicated to electing Cindy Sheehan to Congress to replace Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), announced a full scale media blitz throughout San Francisco's 8th Congressional District. The campaign confirmed that 360 television ads, 1,243 radio ads and print advertising in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Bay Guardian and The Bay View had all been coordinated to appear with direct mail and door tags distributed to voters throughout San Francisco this week. "This coordinated media campaign is the best way for me to reach voters in San Francisco,"...

SAN FRANCISCO -- In this live-and-let-live town, where medical marijuana clubs do business next to grocery stores and an annual fair celebrates sadomasochism, prostitutes could soon walk the streets without fear of arrest. San Francisco would become the first major U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution if voters next month approve Proposition K -- a measure that forbids local authorities from investigating, arresting or prosecuting anyone for selling sex. The ballot question technically would not legalize prostitution since state law still prohibits it, but the measure would eliminate the power of local law enforcement officials to go after prostitutes. Proponents say...

In this live-and-let-live town, where medical marijuana clubs do business next to grocery stores and an annual fair celebrates sadomasochism, prostitutes could soon walk the streets without fear of arrest. San Francisco would become the first major U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution if voters next month approve Proposition K — a measure that forbids local authorities from investigating, arresting or prosecuting anyone for selling sex. The ballot question technically would not legalize prostitution since state law still prohibits it, but the measure would eliminate the power of local law enforcement officials to go after prostitutes.

In San Francisco you can buy votive candles that featured Obama dressed in Monks robes with a halo, giving a benediction while holding a cross (see a picture of it here.) It would be funny if it weren't for the actual Obama worship that hammers our senses.  The left's unique ability to ignore reality and be guided by utopian impossibilities has reached new levels of absurdity. Adding to aromatherapy, Feng Shui and the healing power of crystals, we now have Obamaism, the belief that an inexperienced and dishonest socialist politician can somehow "change" America and the world for the...

Starting this week, San Francisco City Hall will be expanding its wedding hours to accommodate the rush of gay and lesbian couples nervous about the outcome of the Nov. 4 election. "We've been together for 13 years," said Ana Solomon of San Leandro, who came in last week to marry her partner, Joan Joosten. They're among the many couples who have been coming into the city to tie the knot before Californians vote on Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment that would slam the door shut on same-sex marriages. "I have to admit," Joosten said, "the idea of the ban passing...

The Illinois senator has shown beyond a doubt that he is the one to lead the nation in troubled times.The stakes were extraordinarily high even before our economy began to spasm and hurtle toward the abyss.From the start of the campaign, Americans were confronted with profound policy choices about how and when to extricate this nation from a war it initiated, how to temper a looming recession, and whether to continue Bush administration policies that had widened the gap between rich and poor, eroded individual liberties, strengthened presidential power, shifted the Supreme Court to the right, weakened relations with our...

As the number of disabled parking placards in San Francisco continues to go up, so does the level of frustration among city officials who have yet to get a handle on the rampant abuse. The city has beefed up its force of parking cops targeting disabled parking abuse to eight (soon to be 10) officers, but the problem persists. The city loses out on parking revenue and there's less turnover of curbside parking spaces. As of August 2007, the most recent data the California Department of Motor Vehicles has on hand, there were 48,282 permanent placards issued to San Francisco...