Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ― Gay marriage supporters are holding a prayer service on the eve of the California Supreme Court's expected ruling on the legality of a voter-approved ban on same-sex nuptials. The group Marriage Equality USA plans to hold the interfaith event Monday night at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. On Tuesday morning, the state's high court plans to rule on a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn Proposition 8. Opponents of the gay marriage ban argue that the issue was improperly put before voters; they say it revised the state constitution's equal protection clause to such a dramatic...

A controversial plan for a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge is expected to move forward today. The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District Board of Directors will likely approve a proposal on a plan that calls for a net extending 20 feet below and 20 feet from the side of the bridge. But the design cannot detract too much from the span's graceful, historic look. The barrier would cost $40 to $50 million and take up to three years to complete. But, before funding can be figured out, the bridge district has to get state and federal...

Lionized by Hollywood and California state legislators, the real Milk was a demagogue and pal of Jim Jones. This Friday would have been slain San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk’s 79th birthday, and California state senator Mark Leno has introduced legislation to mark the date with a state holiday. The bill doesn’t call for a furlough from work, but instead instructs the governor to proclaim a “Harvey Milk Day” and designates “that date as having special significance in the public schools and educational institutions” and encourages them to “conduct suitable commemorative exercises.” The legislation passed muster with the state senate in...

The San Francisco Police Department says it will no longer tolerate lewd behavior – including public sex acts and nudity – at a July street fair sponsored by Folsom Street Events, the same group that puts on the annual Folsom Street Fair, a public celebration of sado-masochism. The event in question, the Up Your Alley Fair, is scheduled for Sunday, July 26, in San Francisco's South of Market District on Dore Alley between Folsom and Howard streets. Last year’s event resulted in multiple complaints to the Office of Citizen Complaints against patrol officers assigned to cover the event. Citizens complained...

Rolling Stone closes last S.F. office James Temple, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, April 17, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO -- Rolling Stone Magazine has severed its last tenuous link to San Francisco, the city where Jan Wenner co-founded the irreverent biweekly 42 years ago to cover the psychedelic rock scene and counterculture movement flourishing in the region. New York publisher Wenner Media will shutter its three-person office at 1700 Montgomery St., spokesman Mark Neschis said. It housed one Rolling Stone sales representative, who will relocate to Los Angeles. The other two employees, a Men's Journal representative and an assistant, are being laid...

Size Of San Francisco Tea Party Protest Shows Obama's In Hot Water April 15, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Despite a concerted effort by the MSM to ignore and or belittle the burgeoning conservative Tea Party movement, on this bright April tax day at least 1,200 citizens showed up in the belly of the beast, San Francisco, to protest the Obama administration. Led by a citizen coalition including KSFO firebrand talker Melanie Morgan, the group assembled in front of Civic Center and then marched on Speaker Pelosi's office at 450 Golden Gate Avenue. In dramatic contrast...

San Franciscans have recently been finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of riding around on public buses plastered with the words “ISLAM - Submission to God.” I say “uncomfortable” because San Francisco is famously amongst the most secular and non-religious cities in the nation. But there has been nary a peep of comment or protest about these ubiquitous in-your-face ads, which are shown here in photos taken on March 2 in San Francisco. Such was not the case a few weeks ago in Ft. Lauderdale, however, which is one of the cities where the ads first appeared on buses. As...

The family of a father and two sons slain last year in San Francisco filed a lawsuit Friday, blaming the city's sanctuary policy for illegally shielding the suspected gunman from earlier deportation despite his record of "extreme violence." The suit - lodged in San Francisco Superior Court - asserts that the city sanctuary policy was a "substantial factor" in the June 22, 2008, slayings of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. The city attorney's office declined to comment. Lawyers for Bologna's wife and his two surviving children assert in the suit that the alleged gunman,...

The protest remained peaceful until the main group arrived at Civic Center Plaza. There, a couple hundred pro-Israel protesters waving Israeli flags were waiting for the larger contingent, which included many pro-Palestine protesters. The pro-Palestine group broke off from the larger demonstration to confront the Israel supporters, who were carrying signs including "Hamas, stop using children as human shields." Both sides yelled angrily at each other and some protesters got into a physical fight, shoving each other. Police arrested at least two people. About 100 police in riot gear were at the scene, and a dozen police vans were parked...

n the 2008 calendar year, the City and County of San Francisco had nearly 9,000 employees who were paid at least $100,000. Find out who they were, what departments they worked for and how much they made by searching the database below. To perform a search, you can leave the fields blank or on "select" if you want broad results. For more narrow results, you can enter a person's name or select from the drop-down menus.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, worried about the fate of The Chronicle and other financially struggling newspapers, urged the Justice Department Monday to consider giving Bay Area papers more leeway to merge or consolidate business operations to stay afloat. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, released by Pelosi's office late Monday, the San Francisco Democrat asked the department to weigh the public benefit of saving The Chronicle and other papers from closure against the agency's antitrust mission to guard against anti-competitive behavior. "We must ensure that our policies enable our news organizations to survive and to engage in the...

San Francisco Even in a culture in which sex toys are a booming business and Oprah Winfrey discusses living your best life in the bedroom, a coed live-in commune dedicated to the female orgasm hovers at the extremes. The founder of the One Taste Urban Retreat Center, Nicole Daedone, sees herself as leading “the slow-sex movement,” one that places a near-exclusive emphasis on women’s pleasure — in which love, romance and even flirtation are not required. ... A core of 38 men and women — their average age the late 20s — live full time in the retreat center, a...

If you'd like a reading on how the economy is affecting the average San Franciscan, you could call an economist. You could study wages and layoffs. You might even graph the rise of foreclosures. Or you could stop into the Provident Loan Association on Mission Street behind the Old Mint. "It's heartbreaking," said manager Ben Shemano. "We have people bringing in their last treasures, filled with unrealistic hopes and expectations." Shemano and others at Provident don't like to think of it as a pawn shop. There are no handguns, toaster ovens or electric guitars in the window. The store -...

The San Francisco Police Department Park Station bombing occurred on February 16, 1970, when a pipe bomb filled with shrapnel detonated on the ledge of a window at the San Francisco Police Department's Golden Gate Park station. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Investigators in the early '70s said the bombing likely was the work of the Weather Underground, and not the Black Liberation Army,"but the crime was never solved. Brian V. McDonnell, a police sergeant, was fatally wounded in its blast; Robert Fogarty, another police officer, was severely wounded in his face and legs and was partially blinded. No...

San Franciscans concerned with a lack of government transperancy rest easy. Twitter is coming to the rescue. Everybody's favorite mayor running for governor, Gavin Newsom, was at Twitter's headquarters on Tuesday morning to twitterfy San Francisco. Newsom is no stranger to the Twitter phenomenon as he seeks all the attention he can get ahead of his run for governor. He often tweets what he is up to from his cell phone. In fact he tweeted his meeting with the head of Twitter and his recent apperances on network television and his radio show. "Heading over to Twitter HQ tomorrow --...

“Beautiful job of defending homosexuality” Student actors from Catholic high school will perform ‘gay-friendly’ play at ‘gay-friendly’ San Francisco parish Student actors from Sacred Heart Preparatory School in Atherton will perform a play based on the controversial book The God Box at Most Holy Redeemer parish in San Francisco on Sunday afternoon, March 8. The play, according to the March 1 parish bulletin of Most Holy Redeemer, “explores the subject of homosexuality within a Christian, adolescent context.” Entitled “Be Still and Know,” the play was first performed on Jan. 30 at the Campbell Theatre for Performing arts on the Sacred...

Mission District rally for immigrant rights Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, February 26, 2009 Several hundred people packed a school auditorium in San Francisco's Mission District on Wednesday evening to decry the city's treatment of immigrants, making their case in front of a panel of city officials that included representatives from the Police Department, mayor's office, school board and Board of Supervisors. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/26/BANN165CUH.DTL&type=printable

Jennifer Siebel Newsom is the first lady of San Francisco — but she also stars in a very racy romantic comedy. Before Jennifer even met her husband (Mayor Gavin Newsom) she made the indie flick The Trouble With Love which has now wound up in the hands of Warner Bros. for an "on demand" and limited theater release this Friday. "It is going to cause quite a stir as people aren’t used to seeing a political figure like this," director Gene Rhee told Tarts. "But I just hope people judge her (Jennifer) for her amazing performance not for her political...

Hearst Corp. said it may close its San Francisco Chronicle newspaper unless it can quickly slash costs at the money-losing daily. Hearst said it will seek "critical cost-saving measures," including a steep reduction in the Chronicle work force. If it can't reach its cost-saving target "within weeks," it will seek a buyer for the newspaper, Hearst said. And if it can't find a buyer -- at a time when few investors are shelling out money for big newspapers -- it will close the paper. The possible closure of the Chronicle, the 12th-largest daily in the country and Northern California's largest...

Hearst to Slash, Sell or Close the Chronicle By SHIRA OVIDE Hearst Corp. said it may close its San Francisco Chronicle newspaper unless it can quickly slash costs at the money-losing daily. A vendor sells a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle at his newsstand in the San Francisco Municipal Railway station. Getty Images A vendor sells a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle at his newsstand in the San Francisco Municipal Railway station. A vendor sells a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle at his newsstand in the San Francisco Municipal Railway station. A vendor sells a copy of...