PREACHING TO GAY PRIDE
The Pope can expect a hostile welcome from San Franciscan
homosexuals, writes Tom Bethell A RECENT edition of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that 'Prostitutes and drag queens cavorted in skivvies on one side of the street in front of Mayor Dianne Feinstein's house last night. Nazi death camp survivors and Orthodox Jews chanted holy songs on the other.'
They were protesting at the mayor's $250-a-plate fund-raising dinner for Pope John Paul II's two-day visit to the city in mid-September. Another paper reported that the 50-odd demonstrators were 'more anti-Pope than anti-Feinstein'. The Jews were there to express 'outrage' over the Pope's audience with the Austrian presi- dent, Kurt Waldheim. The 'drag queens', a group of about 20 homosexuals who dress up as nuns and call themselves the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, are outraged because the Pope has called homosexuality an 'intrinsic moral evil'. As for the prosti- tutes, Scarlet Harlot, leader of the Whores of Babylon, sang a tune entitled, 'Pope, Don't Preach, I'm Terminating My Preg- nancy'.
`Use Condoms', say the ads on San Francisco's buses. The Aids hotline num- ber is appended. About 3,500 cases of Aids have been diagnosed in San Fraticisco, with over 2,000 deaths to date. About 97 per cent of the cases involve homosexual or bisexual men. In June, 96 new cases of Aids were diagnosed in the city, 95 of them homosexual men, six of whom also used intravenous drugs.
A newsclipping attached to the notice- board of the First Unitarian Church quotes F. Jay Decan of the denomination's Office of Lesbian and Gay Concerns as saying that the Vatican's linkage of Aids and homosexuals is 'mischievous and arrogant'. The Unitarians believe the Vatican's 1986 letter on homosexuality is 'laced with archaic religious assumptions and asto- nishing arrogance'. Estimates vary, but there are perhaps 75,000 homosexual men in San Francisco — one tenth of the city's population. According to one widely quoted figure, half of them may be infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes Aids. Many of these could contract Aids. A local ordnance prevents San Francis- cans with Aids from being fired from their jobs. Nor can they be denied housing or evicted simply because of an Aids diagno- sis. Insurance companies in California are not allowed access to results of the Aids antibody test in assessing insurance pre- miums. There was even a case in Los Angeles where a judge ruled that Aids was a job-related illness and awarded com- pensation payments to a man who said he had contracted Aids from prostitutes in Zaire.
About 200,000 San Franciscans turned out for the annual Gay Pride Parade down Market Street in late June. 'Whips were everywhere,' according to the Bay Area Reporter. 'A stand-in for Pope John Paul II rode in a pope-mobile pulled by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. "His Holiness" was garbed in splendid pontifical robes and carried a whip with which he threatened the sisters whenever they looked like they were beginning to get lax in their duties.'
Apparently local politicians cannot afford to miss this event. Everyone from the sheriff to the district attorney turned out for the parade. In the current mayoral race (Feinstein is not seeking re-election) a suprising issue emerged between the two leading contenders when a state assembly- man, Art Agnos, carelessly said he 'didn't have time' to campaign in `leather bars' frequented by those addicted to sadism and masochism. This remark was interpreted as an attack on his opponent, the San Francis- co Supervisor John Molinari, who had found time for such appearances. Agnos then found himself on the defensive, de- nying that he was in any way homophobic.
Only one candidate has dared raise questions about homosexuality, and he is a political newcomer who doesn't know the ropes. 'He said, "Some of my best friends are gay but I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one" — that kind of nonsense,' said Gilbert Blick, who plays Sister Sadie the Rabbi Lady in the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. 'If he gets more than one per cent of the vote we'll all be very surprised.'
The sisters are planning various protest activities and street theatre for the Pope's visit. Some of them no doubt will be wearing Papal robes and there have been pictures in homosexual publications of terriers in mitres. Sister Boom Boom (real name Jack Fertig), whose demonstrations against Phyliss Schlafly and Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority gained him fame or notoriety at the time of the 1984 Democra- tic National Convention, will no longer be with the group. He told me that in 1985 he gave up drugs and alcohol, and soon thereafter began going to church 'serious- ly'. Remarkably enough, at the time of the 1984 demonstrations Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco chose to criticise Falwell and Schlafly, rather than the homosexuals who were using nuns' habits to ridicule them.
I attended an anti-Papal fund-raising event given by John Wahl, a 'gay rights' lawyer whose Papal Visit Task Force has been mobilising a coalition `to express the united outrage of Californians at the Pope's public condemnation of gay libera- tion, women's right to choice, and libera- tion theology in Third World countries'. It was held on Sunday afternoon at the Langtry Inn, a Victorian guest-house for women travellers partly owned by Ms Ginny Foat, the former California presi- dent of the national Organisation of Women, who was acquitted of murder charges in Louisiana in 1983. Foat said she was a practising Catholic but regretted that the Pope was 'not a compassionate man', ideally in her mind a 'combination of Martin Luther King and Gandhi'.
Also on hand was Robert Tielman, something of a celebrity and introduced to all and sundry as the organiser of the anti-Papal protests in Holland last year. He told me he was 'head of the Gay and Lesbian Studies Department at the Uni- versity of Utrecht', and he wanted me to know how deplorable it was that this Pope was 'imposing his conservative views on liberals in the church'.
`That man is coming here in September,' said John Wahl, who was attorney to Harvey Milk, the homosexual San Francis- co politician shot in City Hall in 1978 by Dan White (a 'closeted gay man', accord- ing to Wahl). 'John Paul wants to walk our streets like a gentle grandfather, patting the heads of supplicants. Is that what you're going to do?
`That's not what I'm going to do,' said Wahl. 'That's not what thousands of peo- ple are going to do. We're going to tell that man and every other so-called religious leader that says that kind of thing, that is guilty of that kind of lie, that kind of inflammatory rhetoric, we're going to say to him or her . . . go home, go back to bed, go back and get psychoanalysed, get some therapy, you're sick, you're impeding the progress of humankind in advancing and growing up.'
In the predominantly homosexual Cas- tro district, I spoke to a Catholic priest who was coming out of the Most Holy Redeem- er Church and who visits dying Aids patients in the 'Coming Home' hospice opposite the church.
'The Pope is in for a big surprise when he gets here,' Fr John said. 'People are hurting and he comes out with statements that are harsh and judgmental. The Church is not a very loving place.' He said the Pope should 'stay home and send us a videotape'.
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