Same-sex wedding alternatives, shoplifting irony, and naked politics

Same-sex wedding alternatives, shoplifting irony,
and naked politics

Note to same-sex couples wanting to marry by election day in case Proposition 8 passes: City Hall is completely booked for marriage licenses and ceremonies Friday, Monday and Tuesday.

But there are plenty of places to wed under the deadline. Just ask Victor Andersen, a 27-year-old Redwood City resident and ordained minister in the Universal Life Church.

Andersen converted a Victorian flat into the Heart of the Castro Wedding Chapel and opened for business the day after same-sex weddings became legal in California. He has married about 50 couples so far, from places as varied as Texas and Thailand.

Andersen and his friends have been standing outside City Hall this week wearing a pink sandwich board that reads, "Are you trying to get married before November 4? City Hall is booked."

He's offering election specials: $150 for a simple ceremony on up to $600 for the full shebang with keepsake photos and a video. Marriage licenses can be obtained in any county and brought to the chapel.

Patience, young Jedi: School board members have said for years that they are just about ready to change how they assign students to schools. And then they don't.

But this time, they mean it. Maybe.

On Tuesday, district staff gave the board a tentative timeline for changing the current assignment process. The idea now is to vote on a new system on April 28 and have it in effect for the 2010-11 school year.

But the school board also promised to adopt a new system by spring 2006. And then summer 2006. Summer 2007. December 2007. End of 2008. Now it's spring 2009.

The current assignment system uses household income, home language and other family characteristics to assign students. The idea was to create diversity without using race as a factor. But racial segregation has gotten worse under the system. In addition, the process has drawn fire for sending students to schools far from their neighborhoods.

The new timeline means the assignment process will be adopted by a school board that includes members elected Tuesday.

In short, stay tuned, but breath holding is not advised.

Do as I say, not as I do: Is it just us, or is there something a little humorous about San Francisco state Sen. Leland Yee being a speaker at a conference today on organized retail crime?

This is the same guy who was arrested in Hawaii in 1992 for allegedly shoplifting a bottle of suntan oil. The misdemeanor charge was dropped after Yee apparently didn't stick around to be prosecuted.

To be sure, that was 16 years ago, and Yee was accused of slipping the bottle into his pocket, not participating in, say, an organized ring stealing hundreds of dollars worth of Mach 3 razors. But it still seems to be in the same universe.

Yee spokesman Adam Keigwin certainly didn't think so.

"I'm familiar with the case that was dropped," Keigwin said, "which wasn't an organized retail crime."

Retailers say organized retail crime, which includes coordinated shoplifting, cargo theft and other rip-offs, costs about $30 billion a year. Yee tried to advance a bill last year that would have made for stiffer penalties in such cases, but it stalled.

Still, isn't there a touch of irony with Yee addressing a gathering of cops, prosecutors and retail loss-prevention executives in Newark?

"No, I don't think so," Keigwin said. We thought not.

Naked politics: The rhetoric is getting louder over San Francisco's Proposition K, which would decriminalize prostitution in the city.

There were dueling news conferences on the issue today. First, Mayor Gavin Newsom and District Attorney Kamala Harris spoke to reporters outside what had been a brothel fronting as a massage parlor on Geary Boulevard. Later, the backers of Prop. K promised to have sex workers at an afternoon event in the "red-light district" of North Beach. (They produced one former prostitute and several advocates for sex workers.)

Why all the hubbub? Well, the issue is getting national attention, and opponents are concerned it will pass.

David Binder Research, a major polling firm on San Francisco political issues, has not polled on Prop. K. Newsom said that he was unaware of any direct polling on it but that generic polls have shown a "huge undecided" segment.

"The reason we're doing this, candidly, is we're worried it's going to pass," Newsom said. "I didn't believe it could possibly pass a few months ago, and now there's real concern that it might. And we will regret the day that we made that decision."

Newsom said he attended a raid at the Geary site in 2005 and walked in on a man having sex with what he believes was an underage victim of human sex trafficking. Opponents of Prop. K say it would make it impossible to stop the city's burgeoning sex-slave trade.

Supporters of the measure argue that it will improve safety because now prostitutes are afraid to report crimes like rape for fear of being arrested themselves.

Souce by:San Franscisco Chronicle
(Wednesday, October 29, 2008)
Tag :same sex , wedding