Angela Alioto is Standing Up for Equality

This just in from John Newsom: Angela Alioto is boycotting Badlands. We have had Tom Ammiano, Matt Gonzalez, and now Angela Alioto. What next?

You gotta come picket with Angela. It will be a hoot.

Check out the sponsoring groups and the ad that appearing in the Bay Area Reporter this week.

This Pride season: Stand Up for Equality, Stand Out for Justice, and Stand Proud for Our Community!

Boycott Badlands.

National and state-wide organizations:
International ANSWER
Equality California
Global Exchange
The National Association of Black and White Men Together
The National Black Justice Coalition
The National Center for Lesbian Rights

Bay Area organizations:
…And Castro for All
The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club
Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women and Trans Coalition (APIQWTC)
Bay Area American Indian Twin Spirit BAAITS
Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF, SF’s LGBT legal association)
Community United Against Violence (CUAV)
The Gay Asian Pacific Alliance (GAPA) Board
The Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club
Lesbians and Gays of African Descent for Democratic Action (LGADDA)
LGBT Black Rap
LYRIC
Mission Agenda
NIA Collective
Pride at Work, AFL-CIO
The A. Philip Randolph Institute
SEIU Local 790
The San Francisco Green Party
The San Francisco Labor Council
The San Francisco LGBT Community Center
The San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee
The San Francisco People’s Organization
The San Francisco Tenants Union
The San Francisco Young Democrats
The Stop AIDS Project
Transcendence Gospel Choir

To join the movement for greater inclusion within the Bay Area LGBT community, please visit: www.andcastroforall.org

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Call for Action

Addressing Discrimination at SFBadlands: What We Want Is What Everyone Deserves

Summary of the City’s Finding:

On April 26, 2005, after one of the most comprehensive investigations in its history, the Human Rights Commission of San Francisco released the following Finding: that SFBadlands bar owner Les Natali “discriminated against African American customers when they were required to provide multiple forms of identification, discouraged from entering, denied entry for carrying bags, and removed from the bar on false charges of violating bar policy.”

The City also found that Mr. Natali discriminated against African American job applicants, and expressed concern that, with the exception of a part-time bookkeeper, there were no women working at SFBadlands when the City’s investigation began.

Finally, the City rejected Mr. Natali’s assertion that his accusers were disgruntled former employees or were motivated by relationships with competitors.

Discussion:
Acts that interfere with the free exercise of a person’s rights or privileges under state or federal law (e.g., those committed by Natali) are crimes under California Penal Code Section 422.6. All persons have the right to be free of racial discrimination in employment under FEHA law, and race-based bias in public accommodation is prohibited under the Unruh Act. The City’s Finding, in the hands of enforcement bodies, exposes violations that can lead to license revocation or imprisonment.

Make no mistake about it: racial discrimination to the degree found by the City against Mr. Natali and SFBadlands is not just a civil wrong, but can and should be found by the CA Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and other regulators to constitute “crimes of moral turpitude.”

Request for Action:

In light of the City’s Finding, it is imperative that Mr. Natali:

• Apologize publicly to individual victims and to the broader community for engaging in the discriminatory acts detailed in the City’s Finding


• Retract and apologize for the untrue statements he has made about the motives of his complainants and their supporters

This alone is not enough, however. The City and the State must enforce their own laws and policies as they pertain to this matter. To do otherwise renders our hard-won civil rights laws meaningless. In a City willing to challenge existing laws by extending to LGBT people the civil rights of marriage, it would be deeply troubling if our leadership, in turn, failed to uphold for people of color the civil rights already on record.

The sanctity of civil rights laws makes it imperative that City and State agencies:

• Take an unambiguous and public stand denouncing Mr. Natali’s history of civil rights violations as detailed in the City’s finding


• Deny Mr. Natali possession of any licenses to run new establishments – particularly those for the Pendulum bar, with its significant African-American clientele


• Revoke Mr. Natali’s existing licenses, per State penalty guidelines for “crimes of moral turpitude”

We want accountability from those who violate civil rights laws.

We want moral leadership from our City and State officials, who are charged with upholding and defending our most basic civil rights – equal access to public accommodations and employment.

What we want is what everyone deserves: The equality and justice enshrined in our Constitution and guaranteed – by civil rights laws and processes – to ALL of the People in our City, State, and Nation.