EXPOSED: San Francisco Nudists Rally Against Law!

San Francisco demonstrators put their buns on the line this weekend to protest a law that would strip their nudity rights on city streets. Oh, they'd still be allowed to appear in public naked, as they are now, but they'd have to get dressed to enter a restaurant and would be required to use a towel or something between their bare butts and public seating—if the law gets passed. 

The nudists usually get together en masse to celebrate the annual Folsom Street Fair, but this year more than usual turned out for the "nude-in" to express their naked fury at supervisor Scott Wiener's proposal. "It's just another form of prejudice," sniffed nudie Woody Miller. Other nudists are insulted that someone would assume they wouldn't have the good manners to sit on a towel. Even Castro area businesses aren't, ahh, behind the proposed law. “Nudity really doesn’t impact business,” a spokesman for some 300 local businesses tells the New York Times. “It's kind of a draw for tourists. As long as the people who come to look spend money in the neighborhood, that’s all I care about.”

IDOLED: Former Gay Adult Film Actor 'Ryan Idol' Convicted of Attempted Murder!

Marc Anthony Donais, 47, formerly known as '80s gay porn actor Ryan Idol, was convicted on Tuesday of attempting to kill his girlfriend with a toilet tank lid, the Sacramento Bee reports: According to testimony at trial, the 41-year-old woman had broken up with Donais, who claimed to be bisexual. She testified she moved out of their West Sacramento condo when he knocked on her door the night of the attack while she was taking a bath.

She told jurors she let Donais into the house and that he immediately told her he wanted to kill her. He testified at trial that he thought she had pulled a knife on him during their discussion in her bathroom and that he grabbed the toilet tank lid and hit her with it out of self defense.

Donais is currently being held without bail.

SACRIFICE: Flash Mob Targets Michele Bachmann with 'Like a Prayer'!

Activists from the Courage Campaign objected to Michele Bachmann's presence at a California GOP convention yesterday by breaking out in a coordinated dance to "Like a Prayer." If only Marcus were up front, leading the pack, twirling his boa... Boa scarf.

LIBERATED: Pioneering Gay Rights Activist Arthur Evans Dies

Pioneering gay rights activist and longtime resident of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury neighborhood Arthur Evans died on Sunday of a heart attack at the age of 68, as the result of an aortic aneurysm discovered last year, the Bay-Citizen reports.

From the Bay Area Reporter's obituary: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mr. Evans played a pivotal role in the newly emergent gay liberation movement in New York City. A few weeks after the famous Stonewall Riot of June 1969 (which he missed), Evans and his lover, Arthur Bell, joined the Gay Liberation Front, a new group that proudly proclaimed itself to be gay, countercultural, and revolutionary. Within GLF, Mr. Evans and others created a cell called the Radical Study Group to examine the historical roots of sexism and homophobia. Many of the participants later became published authors, including, besides Mr. Evans and Bell, John Lauritsen, Larry Mitchell, and Steve Dansky.

BATTLEGROUND: Prop 8 Supporters, Opponents Face Off Before Yesterday's Hearing!

WRONG: Santa Cara's Great America Sued for Mocking Gay Couple!

Great America amusement park in Santa Clara, California is being sued for sexual harassment for posting a souvenir photo of a gay couple riding a roller coaster on one of its rides, and publicly mocking them with a thought bubble containing an anti-gay slur, the SF Chronicle's John King reports: The two men exited past a counter where park employees were selling photographs taken of patrons during the ride. Person and Yang declined to purchase a shot showing them from overhead, holding hands.

Later in the day, friends discovered the same photograph on display at a different ride's counter - but with a thought bubble added that contained the phase "Were (sic) Fags!"

The 10-count lawsuit asks for damages, saying the men were distressed at the time and have continued to suffer humiliation and discomfort. 

Great America did not respond to the paper's request for comment.

FUNNY: Two CUTE Brits TOUR Walmart!

Alex and Liam two musicians from the UK, take a tour of Walmart, and find extraordinary things.

BANNED: Lesbians Booted From Gertrude Stein Exhibit!

The irony was apparently lost on a museum guard who ejected two lesbians from a San Francisco exhibit on Gertrude Stein for holding hands. "We are not leaving and we want to talk to somebody in authority right now," the couple told the guard after they were informed they "couldn't hold hands," a witness tells the San Francisco Chronicle.  A spokesman for the Contemporary Jewish Museum says officials support the gay community and have asked the private company that provides security to reprimand the guard. 

In another discrimination complaint on the other side of the country, a lesbian couple is suing a Vermont inn for refusing to allow them to hold a wedding reception on the grounds. The mother of one of the women was told point-blank that the Wildflower Inn does not host "gay receptions," the suit charges. "The law is clear that any business that provides a service to the public can't pick and choose who they want to serve based on the customer's race, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity," an ACLU attorney told MSNBC. The inn's owners were not immediately available for comment.

REJECTED: Ninth Circuit Reverses Part of DADT Injunction!

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed course a bit on its injunction against Don't Ask, Don't Tell yesterday.

The San Francisco-based court previously approved a Log Cabin Republican injunction and ordered the military to stop investigating, discharging and penalizing people under DADT. That ruling also declared that the armed services should start accepting applications from openly gay people.

The government, however, balked at the ruling, claiming the injunction would disrupt the "orderly process" of DADT's repeal, and would go against Congress' wishes.

"Congress made quite clear that it believed the terms of the transition were critical to the credibility and success of this historic policy change, and to ensure continued military effectiveness," the Department of Justice said in its request.

TIME OUT: Binational Gay Couple Faces Deportation Wednesday!

LGBT groups will rally on Wednesday outside a San Francisco courthouse where a deportation hearing that may decide the fate of a married, gay binational couple will take place, Out4Immigration.org writes, in a press release:

On July 13 in San Francisco, Doug Gentry and Alex Benshimol, a married California couple who have been together for six years, will face every same-sex binational couple’s worst nightmare: a deportation hearing. Doug, a U.S. citizen, filed a marriage-based "green card" petition for Alex in July 2010. It was denied in March in a one-page letter citing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as the only reason. The couple re-filed the petition in June, citing changes in the administration position on DOMA that took place in February, and the Attorney General's intervention in a Board of Immigration Appeals case in April involving a gay binational couple facing deportation which was made public on May 5.

Alex came into the U.S. 12 years ago from Venezuela and overstayed a tourist visa, an immigration violation that straight binational couples can easily remedy once married; as a gay married couple, Doug and Alex do not have that option.

CAUGHT: Picasso Thief Busted!

A thief who strolled out of a San Francisco gallery with a stolen Picasso has been arrested and the 1965 pencil sketch has been recovered, police say. The suspect, a man who flew in from New Jersey the day before the theft, was found staying with friends in Northern California's wine country, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Police say he had the sketch ready for shipment and it "would have been in a FedEx box somewhere" if they had found him a day later. Investigators tracked the man down after finding a cabbie who took him from near the gallery to an upscale hotel. The 30-year-old suspect, who has no major criminal record, has worked as a wine steward in high-end East Coast restaurants. "We can assume he has good taste, and how he was going to finance that good taste, perhaps, was based upon his success in obtaining a valuable piece of art," the chief investigator says.

Calif. Gay History Bill Heads to Governor

A bill requiring California schools to teach gay history is headed for Gov. Jerry Brown's desk after passing the state Assembly. The bill, SB48, would make California the first state in the union to require history classes and textbooks to include the contributions of gay and lesbian Americans, reports the Los Angeles Times. 

The governor, who hasn't taken a public position on the bill, has 12 days to sign or veto it; Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected a similar bill in 2006. The bill would require schools to "present a more accurate and nuanced view of American history in our social science curriculum by recognizing the accomplishments of groups that are not often recognized," said Joan Perez, the first openly gay speaker of the California Assembly. The bill's Republican opponents accuse its authors of trying to promote a "homosexual agenda" in California schools. "Our founding fathers are turning over in their graves," said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly.

OUTscene: Book RE-view Nick Krieger's Gender Journey!

by Lincoln Rose

Some books feel universal. They reach across time and space, imparting feelings and lessons that impact people deeply. Nina Here Nor There is not this sort of work, and that’s okay. Nick’s book is firmly centered in a part of San Francisco that I have never seen, and had only heard negative talk about. His experience as a travel writer brings cultural details into sharp focus, and weighs individual meanings.

There was something I found compelling. Until I read Kreiger’s book, I had never noticed how much trans characters avoid looking at each other. I mean truly, solidly seeing our bodies and the multiple meanings of them. I felt like he observes bodies as maps and topographies that tell stories just as much as trees and snow-covered mountain caps.