From: [email-masked] (Rex Wockner)
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 13:14:10 -0700 (PDT)

COURT ALLOWS SAN DIEGO PRIDE PARADE TO BAN HOMOPHOBES
               CONTROVERSY BRINGS OUT RECORD CROWDS
                        by Rex Wockner

        SAN DIEGO -- The failed attempt by a group of homophobes to sue 
their way into the San Diego gay/lesbian pride parade was credited with 
bringing out a record 60,000 marchers and spectators July 16 in 
Hillcrest, the city's main gay neighborhood.
        The parade's previous attendance record was 45,000. Both counts 
were done by the police.
        In a case reminiscent (but reversed) of the St. Patrick's Day 
battles in Boston and New York, a group of about 200 anti-gays, led by 
radio talk-show host and former San Diego mayor Roger Hedgecock, sued 
parade organizers after their application to march was rejected.
        The group, calling itself "The Normal People," claimed they were 
being discriminated against based on their sexual orientation in 
violation of the city's Human Dignity Ordinance.
        But Superior Court Judge Charles Wickersham dismissed their 
lawsuit the day before the parade, rejecting the argument that because 
the parade made use of city streets, police and sanitation services, it 
was a city-supported event prohibited from discriminating.
        "The parade is not a city service," Wickersham said. It is a 
private event and organizers' First Amendment right of free speech allows 
them to ban anyone they want, he said.
        "And even if (banning the anti-gays) was a violation of the 
(Human Dignity) Ordinance, the ordinance can't prevail against the (U.S.) 
Constitution," Wickersham added.
        The anti-gays responded by holding a rally several miles from 
Hillcrest the morning of the parade.
        "We are a sleeping giant ... starting to wipe the sleep out of 
its eyes," one of the group's leaders, Win Housley, a swimming-pool 
repairman, told the ralliers.
        Back in Hillcrest, more than 150 contingents stepped off from the 
gay center and travelled jam-packed University Avenue to Sixth Avenue, 
where marchers and spectators merged and flooded down Sixth Avenue to a 
huge, two-day fair in Balboa Park that featured celebrities such as the 
gay band Bronski Beat, lesbian comedians Lea Delaria and Karen Williams, 
the gay a cappella group the Flirtations, and disco divas Sabrina 
Johnston and Kym Sims.
        Republican Mayor Susan Golding joined the parade for the first time.
        "The world is filled with enough hate and we need less of it, no 
matter what our difference are," Golding said.
        Golding marched despite a call by the city's leading gay 
newspaper, The Gay & Lesbian Times, that she stay away.
        "We, as a gay and lesbian community that has been abandoned by 
the mayor on every major issue that affects us, should view this 
impending occurrence (Golding's plan to march) as nothing less than 
contemptible," the paper editorialized. "She certainly does not agree 
with any aspect of our struggle for equality."
        Golding has opposed gays on such issues as needle exchange, 
domestic partnership, gay marriage and the Boy Scouts' presence on city land.
        The Times ran pictures of 15 notorious homophobes on the cover of 
its pride issue, placing Golding's photo beside Adolf Hitler, Rush 
Limbaugh, Anita Bryant and Jerry Falwell. The mayor's office got advance 
word of the cover and attempted to kill it, said publisher Michael 
Portantino.
        As was dutifully noted by the city's daily newspaper, The 
Union-Tribune, the pride parade offered a dazzling array of gay and 
lesbian groups -- "square-dancers, rugby players, scuba divers, computer 
bulletin-board users, bisexuals, boaters, motorcyclists, drag queens, 
lawyers, police, rodeo riders, firefighters, long-distance runners, the 
West Hollywood Cheerleaders, samba dancers, and fans of the late Judy 
Garland," among others.
        "This is a special day of solidarity and it certainly is pride," 
summed up Christine Kehoe, San Diego's openly lesbian city councillor.

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