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Installment V: Newsome: The Mayor Who Thought He Was King
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I don't know what it is about San Francisco mayors but somehow they get overwhelmed with power or at least the ones do that I have known. The latest is the good mayor Gavin Newsome. He performed 4000 plus same sex marriages in violation of California law or so they say.
Now let me say at the beginning, I'm not against same sex marriages. I think we need more love in the world and if two men want to love each other in the Biblical way (sorry fundamentalists for using a Biblical reference); well, more power to them, but let's don't be kissing in public. Plus, we have got to figure out, along with the Bible thumpers, how to keep the Lesbians from getting a free pass since the Bible doesn't mention them. The mayor, however, tried to make it official. Now, I haven't read this anywhere else but can hardly believe I am the only one who thinks this.
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The mayor really did this probably not so much because he wanted to put a face on discrimination; but, I think, he mainly did it to distinguish himself from the former mayor, Willy Brown. Now, Willy was the master politico. The guy could get elected, let's face it, to almost anything. He single-handedly ran the California legislature for years until term limits forced him out. And, most folks thought he was a crook, in terms of always appointing his buds to high paying offices and collecting big time campaign contributions but nobody ever penned anything on him. Plus, he could get away with the most shenanigans that would jail most other people.
For instance, he had a young thing often on his arm and when she came up pregnant with Willy's child nobody as much as raised an eyebrow. He was almost as good at getting a pass in this area as Jessie Jackson.
Anyway, the good mayor Gav Newson, needs to make his own place in the sun; how does he do it? Well, spectacular in terms of embracing the largest voting blocK in the city, the gay community. Perform some gay marriages, get national attention which he did, and the people immediately said, "Willy Who?" Now, of course, he performed the marriage from a weighted down conscious and not some self-serving motive. Where is your faith?
The State Supreme Court strikes down the marriages. They used the acceptable term, invalidated. Sounds very cold. The gay marriage issues aside, as I've already stated my belief, I think that the whole thing cemented again the idea that San Fran is like some island unto itself: a city where the bizarre is normal. It would make all of us appear as a chai tea with soy sipping left coaster who has never darkened the door of a Wal-Mart. Really, we are not a bunch (some are) of left over hippies, Birkenstock wearing residents of Sodom and Gomorrah. I don't think. But I do know living in San Fran is a wild and crazy experience.
INSTALLMENT I: THE BUSES OF THE HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS
INSTALLMENT II: TOO MANY CARS, TOO FEW PARKING SPACES
INSTALLMENT III: In North Carolina I THOUGHT GAY MEANT HAPPY
INSTALLMENT IV: Thank Vietnam FOR INTRODUCING ME TO FRISCO
INSTALLMENT V: THE MAYOR WHO THOUGHT HE WAS KING
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