James DeLange was an established Lutheran minister from Minnesota when he accepted the call to rescue St. Francis Lutheran, a charming but crumbling old church with a small, struggling congregation in San Francisco’s Castro District.

It was 1981. The AIDS crisis was starting to kill the parishioners at “Our Lady of Safeway,” as it was known, due to its proximity to the grocery store on Market Street. To fully immerse himself in the pandemic, the new pastor moved to the neighborhood and started attending AIDS walks and vigils. He had a wife and two kids, but he also became family to those who had been abandoned because of their sexual orientation.

In the late 1980s, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America had declined to ordain any minister who was openly gay and not celibate, so DeLange offered to ordain them at St. Francis. This radical inclusiveness got St. Francis suspended from the church in 1990. But it also gave the congregation strength and resolve, celebrated in its annual “Feast of the Expulsion.”

A riveting speaker with a deep, rousing voice that carried across a cathedral, DeLange was serving as guest minister at St. Marks Lutheran Church on O’Farrell Street in 2017 when he started losing his train of thought and was noticeably scattered while delivering a sermon .

Diagnosed with dementia, DeLange spent his final years at his home in Eureka Valley with a view of his old congregation, and even the Safeway sign on Market Street. On Aug. 20, two Lutheran ministers who mentored DeLange came to his home to deliver the Lutheran prayer for the dying, much as DeLange had done at the bedsides of men dying of AIDS.

An hour after the prayer session, DeLange died in bed, wearing his red-and-blue St. Francis Lutheran T-shirt and facing the view out the window. His death was confirmed by his daughter, Lynn Krausse. hey what 88

“Jim DeLange was a remarkable and uncommon individual,” said former state Senator Mark Leno, who knew DeLange through community service both in the Castro and citywide.

“He felt and believed deeply, and he had a stiff backbone when the Lutheran church challenged him and his local colleagues on his inclusivity of the LGBTQ community. He had my admiration for that,” Leno said.

DeLange’s impact transcended the Lutheran church. After the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989, he was invited by then-Mayor Art Agnos to join a committee that was forming what would become the San Francisco Interfaith Council in response to both the displacement of people from the earthquake and the growing homelessness population in the City.

“Jim was one of the first to open up his church sanctuary for people to stay during the worst of the winter,” said Agnos, “and he immediately assumed a leadership position in recruiting religious organizations of all faiths to join him in responding to the crisis for the homeless.”

Delange ended up serving on the interfaith council’s board of directors for 23 years, including a long stint as board chair, from 2004 to 2012. The winter shelter he helped launch still exists, and the council mobilizes the city’s 800 communities of faith in times of disaster, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Wherever I go in San Francisco people come up to me and tell me how important my dad was to their lives,” said Krausse. “How he’d been kind in the right moment and offered perfect advice and support. If what they needed was money he would hand them 100 bucks. He was out there doing God’s work.”

James William DeLange was born July 6, 1934 in St. Paul, Minn. where he grew up. His father, William DeLange, managed an industrial laundry service that specialized in cleaning the work overalls worn by workers at the 3M plant, which made scotch tape and other forms of adhesives. As a kid, James worked in the plant loading the washing machines and making deliveries of clean uniforms with his dad.

Salvation came through a neighbor who was the pastor at Gethsamene Lutheran Church. DeLange had been baptized Presbyterian but his mom started taking him to the Lutheran services to support their neighbor, the pastor. This led DeLange to become active in youth ministry at North St. Paul High School, where he was also involved in drama.

After graduating in 1951 he attended the University of Minnesota, but the Korean was on. Convinced he’d be drafted into the Army, he joined the Navy Reserve instead. This allowed him to transfer to Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, Ill. Luckily, he drew soft duty in the Navy Reserve, assigned to setting up the bowling pins in the officers club in St. Paul.

He was off duty and off base when he met Beverly Hansen, a farm girl who’d come to town to bowl. She met DeLange at the alley. They were married in 1957 and Delange was ordained in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, a particularly conservative denomination.

A year later, Delange was assigned to start a Lutheran congregation in the growing Orange County city of Huntington Beach. The flock started in the two-car garage of a house he paid $12,000 for, with a monthly payment of $85. Faith Lutheran Church, as it was named, quickly outgrew the garage and into a campus to fit a congregation that included more than 1,000 families.

In the mid-1970s a schism between facts of the Lutheran Church divided it into a doctrinaire group that wanted to adhere to biblical infallibility, and a more progressive group. DeLange was named Executive Secretary of the progressive faction which split off to form the the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches.

This cost him his job at Faith Lutheran, which remained in the Missouri Synod.

DeLange and his second wife moved to the Bay Area in 1976. Delange continued in an administrative position for the new Association until he got the position at St. Francis, which had allied itself with the more progressive faction.

When the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America came out against non-celibate Gay ministers, DeLange was a perfect representative for the opposition, having emerged as a progressive Lutheran despite his bringing up in the church’s conservative orthodoxy.

“He was seeing the cruelty to the gay community every day in San Francisco,” said his daughter. “To have the church then ostracize the gay clergy became very personal to him so he pushed back against the injustice.”

By 1985, he was leading the St. Francis contingent in the Pride Parade and soon helped organize the Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries. St. Francis eventually withdrew from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Synod.

“Jim was a straight ally who invested a huge amount of his political capital in the movement for the full inclusion and participation of LGBTQIA+ clergy,” said Jeff Johnson, pastor at University Lutheran Chapel of Berkeley, near the Cal campus.

DeLange was also good with fiscal capital. When the earthquake hit in 1989, the south-facing brick facade of St. Francis Lutheran came down in a pile. That provided the impetus for a capital campaign to rebuild the landmark structure which was constructed in 1905-06. DeLange served as project manager and fund raiser and he did not stop there. He started a church endowment fund that has grown over the last 40 years to benefit organizations worldwide, according to the current pastor at St. Francis, Bea Chun.

“What Jim did for the congregation was give us a blueprint to follow,” said Chun. “We have the inspiration of his courage and his willingness to be an innovator.”

DeLange’s second marriage also ended in divorce. In 1991, he married Diane Nelson, a member of a Lutheran congregation in Mill Valley. She did her part for St. Francis by launching a senior lunch program with Nelson herself doing the cooking for 50 or 60 hungry souls every Wednesday. She died of cancer in 2011.

After retiring from St. Francis in 1999, DeLange continued to be minister and busied himself with Democratic Party politics. His Christmas Day “Green Drink” party was a standard, with people coming by to sip his secret concoction involving Creme de Menthe.

“Jim was the kind whose door was always open,” said Leno “He had such a wide range of acquaintances, from his pastoral work to his community work to his leadership on queer issues.”

DeLange is survived by his sister Rochelle Schrodt of St. Paul; daughter Lynn Krausse of Bakersfield; son Brad DeLange of San Francisco; stepson Matthew Nelson of Alameda; stepdaughter Adrienne Brown of Kentfield; and four grandchildren.

Funeral Services will be at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church on Saturday September 24th at 10:30 AM. Memorial donations may be made to St. Francis Lutheran Church 152 Church Street, San Francisco, CA 94114.

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com

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In naming Matt Dorsey as the new District 6 supervisor, San Francisco Mayor London Breed has not only appointed the second gay man living with HIV to fill a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors in recent years but also someone who has personal experience combatting a substance use disorder. An alcoholic who also overused a variety of drugs, including crystal meth, Dorsey has been clean and sober for 19 months as of May 7.

“I was very honest about it,” Dorsey, 57, told the Bay Area Reporter about his discussion with Breed when he spoke with her privately last month about his interest in being named the supervisor for the city’s South of Market, Treasure Island, and Mission Bay neighborhoods. “I have spent most of my adult life in recovery.”

Breed will swear Dorsey in as supervisor at noon Monday (May 9) at Delancey Street, the nonprofit provider of services to substance abusers with a restaurant on the city’s Embarcadero in District 6. Brothers John and Bill Maher, the latter of whom served on the Board of Supervisors, co-founded the agency in 1970.

According to a 1988 Los Angeles Times story, Bill Maher was himself “a former Delancey Street resident and reformed drug addict.” More recently, District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin admitted last summer that he had a drinking problem and sought treatment for alcohol use.

Dorsey will now serve alongside Peskin and gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, until now the lone LGBTQ community member on the board. In June 2018, Mandelman defeated former District 8 Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, a gay man who became the first person living with HIV on the board when the late mayor Ed Lee appointed him to the vacant seat in January 2017.

“I hope it is meaningful to people who maybe have HIV or have a substance use disorder or are from the LGBTQ+ community,” said Dorsey of his now becoming a supervisor.

Dorsey will serve out the remainder of the term vacated by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) last week and will need to run in November for a full four-year term under the newly drawn boundaries for District 6. The city’s redistricting task force pulled out the Tenderloin and most of the city’s Transgender District from District 6, except for the stretch of the cultural district that runs along Sixth Street, and moved it into District 5.

Expected to seek the District 6 seat is queer San Francisco Democratic Party Chair Honey Mahogany, as she had already planned to run for it once Haney had stepped down. Mahogany, a well-known drag queen, had worked for Haney at City Hall as his de facto chief of staff.

While Haney campaigned for the Assembly seat, he had repeatedly urged Breed to name as his successor Mahogany, who would be the first transgender and nonbinary person to serve on the board as well as the first LGBTQ African American supervisor in the city if elected in November . But as the BAR’s Political Notebook reported last month, Breed faced pressure to pick someone else who was aligned with her more moderate faction within the local Democratic Party.

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who has known Dorsey for two decades, told the BAR that Breed had made “a very strong appointment” in choosing Dorsey.

“He’s an incredibly talented, hardworking, committed public servant, and I know he will do a great job on the Board of Supervisors,” said Wiener, who has endorsed Dorsey in the fall race for the seat. “He also brings powerful lived experience to the role, particularly around addiction, which is such a huge challenge in the city.”

New District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey has worked as a civilian in the San Francisco Police Department for the last two years. Photo: Courtesy SFPD

SF struggling with overdoses
Dorsey’s appointment comes as the city is grappling with how to respond to an epidemic of drug overdoses that has been far more deadly than the COVID-19 pandemic. Since January 1, 2020, when San Francisco’s medical examiner began tracking the numbers, nearly 1,500 people have died due to a drug overdose. As of May 1, 865 people have died from COVID in the city.

Dorsey, as director of strategic communications at the San Francisco Police Department and part of Police Chief William Scott’s command staff, took part in the monthly calls with other city officials to hear the latest tally of those who have died from a drug overdose. He told the BAR that he is “acutely aware” that he is “one bad decision away” from being added to the list.

“I think the public health calamity that San Francisco has right now with drug overdose deaths feels to me a lot like the AIDS crisis. It certainly is the biggest public health calamity since AIDS; it has been twice as deadly as COVID-19,” Dorsey told the BAR Sunday, May 8, in his first print media interview since being told by Breed she had chosen him for the supervisor seat. “I think in the same way that those of us who remember those times during the early days of AIDS were wondering where is the outrage at the number of people we are losing, I feel that today as a drug addict.”

Dorsey’s fight with addiction
During the 75-minute interview at Harvest Market on Eighth Street, a short walk from his rented apartment at Trinity Plaza, where he has lived the past 12 years, Dorsey spoke about his struggles with addiction since his teenage years when he would drink alcohol to excess.

“I have spent most of my adult life in recovery. December 2, 1992 was my first sobriety date,” said Dorsey. “I identify as an addict and an alcoholic.”

He had come to realize that his drinking “was unsustainable” and gave up alcohol for the next eight years. He joked that his first stretch of sobriety “mapped closely to the Clinton administration.”

But in 2000 during the dot-com era, Dorsey took up party drugs like meth, ecstasy and GHB, which he did with other gay men at private social parties in people’s homes. He also used drugs equivalent to Xanax to help bring him down off his highs.

“I got that under control but had a couple relapses since then,” recounted Dorsey, who noted that he had “added it up and I have been in recovery I think close to just under 25 years.”

One of his hardest relapses came in 2018 when he was working again in the private sector.

“I think, for me, I am the kind of person who has struggled with substance use disorder based on more of what I can get away with more than anything driving me to it,” Dorsey explained. “Some people come to it because of trauma and some people are built without an off switch, and I am the latter.”

Now that he is a supervisor, Dorsey told the BAR he plans to work with Breed, health officials, and his former colleagues in the police department and city attorney’s office, where he had served as spokesman for former city attorney Dennis Herrera, on figuring out how to open a supervised consumption site where substance users can not only go to consume their drugs but also seek out services to help them deal with their addictions. He suggested to the BAR that the city could use the model that New York City officials have used to open such facilities by partnering with a nonprofit to run them.

“I am a believer in supervised consumption sites,” said Dorsey. “I was one of the people when Dennis Herrera was running for mayor, I advocated very strongly he should support it and he did.”

Having seen firsthand the legal repercussions that can come from city employees and officials ignoring federal law, such as when former mayor Gavin Newsom ordered his administration to marry same-sex couples in 2004, Dorsey said he isn’t surprised by the fear of seeing city staffing a supervised employees consumption site be held legally liable.

“The city has very good reasons for why they want to get their arms around the liability issues,” he said.

Also key for him is having “political consensus” on the issue, said Dorsey.

“One of the most important things is to get our arms around issues of drug addiction in San Francisco,” he said. “I am optimistic that we can.”

The grocery store’s owner, Gil Desaulniers, has lived in District 6 since 1983 and has known Dorsey for 15 years, as Dorsey and his colleagues from the city attorney’s office would often lunch there. Desaulniers said Dorsey is well aware of the problems he has faced as a small business owner with people high on drugs coming into his store and causing problems.

“He’s heard me complain so many times over all the years. My street is the worst,” said Desaulniers, who recently had eye surgery after a woman attacked him with pepper spray and clawed his face because he had asked her to wear a face mask while in the store.

Dorsey “is the perfect guy,” said Desaulniers, to be his district supervisor.

“I’m happy about it,” he told the BAR

Professional life
One of three siblings in an Irish and Italian Catholic family, Dorsey was born in Bristol, Connecticut and lived for a year in Georgia as a kindergartener. But his parents moved the family back to New England and settled in Westfield, Massachusetts.

“It is two towns over from where Art Agnos grew up in Springfield,” noted Dorsey, referring to the former San Francisco mayor.

After earning a bachelor of science in speech with an emphasis in political communications from Emerson College in Boston, and newly out of the closet, Dorsey moved to Los Angeles’s Venice neighborhood in 1990 to work on then-San Francisco District Attorney Arlo Smith’s unsuccessful campaign for attorney general.

He then moved to San Francisco due to Smith hiring him an investigator in the DA office’s Family Support Bureau. Dorsey also served as a deputy press secretary and speechwriter in a part-time capacity for Smith.

The Democratic National Committee hired him for a job in Washington, DC in 1993 to help promote then-President Bill Clinton’s failed Healthcare Reform Act. A year later Dorsey had started his own political consultant firm Koenig & Dorsey; in 1999 he went to work for a technology PR agency.

At the start of the new decade he was back at political consulting until Herrera hired him in September 2002. Dorsey left the city attorney’s office in September 2016 to become a partner and head of the communications practice at Lighthouse Public Affairs, LLC. He joined the police chief’s staff in January 2020.

Apart from working for other elected officials, Dorsey served on the Democratic County Central Committee that oversees the San Francisco Democratic Party. He was appointed to it in 2011 and elected to a four-year term on it in 2012, serving as its secretary. But he opted not to seek another term in 2016.

“There wasn’t the fire in the belly to do a second term on the DCCC,” he explained. “I had a lot of fun on the DCCC. I learned a good lesson, I think to not burn bridges with people. It’s funny, a lot of people I never voted with on the DCCC are now personal friends who are being very supportive of me now.”

He credits three now-deceased gay men — Dennis Collins, the first gay investigator in the DA’s office who was a spokesman on Smith’s campaign, political consultant Jim Rivaldo, and BAR political columnist Wayne Friday — for teaching him about the city’s political landscape.

“They showed me the ropes of San Francisco politics the three of them,” Dorsey said.

He believes he contracted HIV in 2003 due to condom failure, as Dorsey told the BAR he practiced safe sex. It is why he was an early supporter of PrEP, the medication taken orally that prevents people from contracting HIV.

“It is why I am such an advocate for PrEP. Its efficacy is so much better than condoms,” he said.

Dorsey has a boyfriend he has been seeing for seven months, but for now the Brazil native prefers to remain anonymous, he told the BAR

A practicing Catholic to this day, Dorsey is a longtime parishioner at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in the Castro LGBTQ district. He asked Father Donal Godfrey, the author of the 2007 book “Gays and Grays: The Story of the Gay Community at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Parish,” to do the invocation at his supervisory swearing-in ceremony.

“I think spirituality is part of my recovery journey,” said Dorsey, who has attended mass at Most Holy Redeemer since 2004. “I have quarreled with the Catholic Church since childhood. I have accepted I am going to have quarrels with any religious tradition I seek to be a part of.”

As for why he hasn’t sought out a more progressive denomination, Dorsey joked that, “with Catholicism, I know the words already and know when to stand up. I know all the basics.”

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San Francisco could see the return of a gay sex venue as soon as June now that the Board of Supervisors has thrown its support behind removing prohibitions that have kept such establishments from opening their doors in the city’s historic LGBTQ neighborhoods. The decision also paves the way for a traditional gay bathhouse to once again operate in the City-by-the-Bay.

At its April 26 meeting the board voted 11-0 in support of a zoning change that allows gay bathhouses and other adult sex venues to operate in the Castro, Tenderloin, and most of South of Market. It needs to vote a second time at its May 3 meeting before the city code update is sent to the desk of Mayor London Breed, who is not expected to veto it.

The changes should become effective in Pride Month. Once they do Eros, the sex club for queer and trans men, will reopen its doors at 132 Turk Street. After vacating its upper Market Street location in December, Eros began remodeling and moving into its new space, where the gay Bulldog Baths had operated in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman has led the legislative push to allow for the return of gay bathhouses in the city. His efforts saw the lifting in early 2021 of a rule that prevented adult sex venues from having rooms with locked doors, a feature common in gay bathhouses around the globe. The only such venue left in the Bay Area is Steamworks Baths in Berkeley.

Put in place during the AIDS epidemic, the restriction no longer was needed due to HIV becoming a manageable disease and new infections in San Francisco precipitously dropping in recent years, argued Mandelman and LGBTQ health officials. But a decision by Zoning Administrator Corey Teague in December 2020 to define adult sex venues in the city’s health code as being a type of adult business meant they were still broadly banned in the city, including in the three LGBTQ cultural districts.

Thus, Mandelman came back to his colleagues with a second code amendment to define adult sex venues as businesses that include retail sales and service uses. It also specifies that they “may include bathhouse facilities such as pools, tubs, or steam rooms, and are eligible for a Limited Live Performance permit.”

The new zoning outright allows adult sex venues to operate 24/7 in the Castro and on upper Market Street between Octavia Boulevard and Castro Street. The change also makes way for such businesses to operate in much of SOMA and the Tenderloin.

The businesses can seek approval from the planning commission to operate in the eastern SOMA, the Mission, Dogpatch, and Bayview, and if they want to operate between 2 and 6 am in those locations. Adult businesses remain banned in the Chinatown Community Business District.

After the supervisors’ Land Use and Transportation Committee voted April 25 a second time in support of the zoning change, Chair District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar expedited having the full board vote on it Tuesday. The decision sets up the supervisors to cast a final vote next week.

“I hope this is it,” Mandelman told the Bay Area Reporter of having to update the city’s rules for gay bathhouses and adult sex venues. “I hope this opens the door for some entrepreneurs and some really great establishments to open up. In short time it will allow for Eros to open.”

Eros co-owner Ken Rowe noted during the April 11 land use committee hearing that the gay- and trans-owned business operates similar to a “day spa” with daytime and evening hours and not as a 24-hour venue. Since it opened in 1992, the business has worked “to exceed,” Rowe noted, the requirements the city has placed on commercial sex venues.

“We have been able to weather the crises of AIDS and STIs, the drug crisis, and we find ourselves the only gay commercial sex venue to remain in business post the COVID closures imposed,” said Rowe, referring to the closure in 2020 of SOMA sex club Blow Buddies.

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In Ashes to Ink, Lisa Lucca wrote moving memoirs in which she recalls how she came to terms with her gay father. Lucca not only learns to accept who her father is, she also realizes that she and her father loved each other as best they could, despite the problems they had.

Lucca not only shares memories of life with her father, but also writes about her own search for love, which she sometimes sought in the wrong places. She vividly remembers her marriage to a man who did not satisfy her, a man who spent his life on the street and often left her alone with her young son. When she finally made the decision to end this relationship, she was horrified to find that her husband was vicious, vengeful, and didn’t seem to care much about her child. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Lucca held her head up and did everything possible to make a living and get a good life for herself and her son.

Lucca doesn’t hold back when she writes about her father. She remembers a father who may have loved her lesbian sister more than he loved her. Passages in which she expresses her feelings about this situation are deeply emotional. It must have been a difficult book for her, but Lucca remains open throughout the book. Readers will feel they know the author personally.

She is not afraid to express her feelings about her father’s sometimes confusing behavior. Her father visited her when she lived in San Francisco. She is shocked when he moves to town just two weeks later to live with a man he has just spent a night or two with. But despite everything, whether their relationship is going through a rough patch or not, her love for her father and desire to be loved by him becomes evident.
In an interview, Lucca said that she had heard from readers who had gay parents.

“I’ve heard of others who are younger than me,” she said. “One is straight and the other is gay. In either case, they were less affected by their parents’ coming out, as there was more social acceptance news in the past 15+ years, and their sons had a hard time being teenagers, one of whom disliked his father for months. One gay reader said that as she read the book, she thought more about her family accepting her. “

Lisa Lucca with her father as a child and as a young adult.

Lucca has been writing a diary since her youth. She always knew, ever since her parents divorced and her father came out, that one day she would write about their relationship. Since the book is set in the past few decades, Lucca sometimes uses a language that was the vernacular then, including a language that would no longer be acceptable today. In a brief note at the beginning of the book, Lucca assures her readers that she will in no way condone the use of LGBTQ-hostile slurs. She has not received negative feedback for using this language. In fact, she became friends with Jordan Budd, the executive director of Colage, the national organization for children of lesbian and gay parents.

“We had a really good conversation about it,” she said of Budd. “Those were the words. It was Archie Bunker, that’s how I learned everything about any kind of orientation in Central America in the 1960s, except mom and dad. I haven’t heard anything negative about those words from anyone. I just want to Be.” Realize these are not words I would ever use now. “

Lucca is very pleased with the reaction from readers.

“I think the most important thing I hear from everyone who’s read it is that there is some really raw emotional honesty in it, and that’s exactly what I wanted to convey to readers,” she said. “This feeling, no matter where you are in your family situation, there is room for our parents to be understood as human beings and to be understood as parents. I think the idea of ​​love and sexuality, especially for single parents, is one that I haven’t talked much about. It’s really hard to navigate in these waters. “

She can now see that her father’s world was very different from the world she came from.

“He exposed us in a way that wasn’t exactly popular at the time,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of bad reactions to it, but when I was a single mom I really got sympathy for him because I could see that when you’re 35 and newly divorced, and you want to have some kind of romantic life and are a parent, and how do you do that? “

In her opinion, the book has a universal message that can apply to any parent-child relationship, regardless of whether the parents identify as LGBTQ or not. The message is one of acceptance.

“Even if they are different from us, have different beliefs, different ideals and even values, we can have a much more tolerant relationship with our family if we accept who they are and who we are,” said Lucca. “While it doesn’t mean we’re close, it does mean we’re not at odds because I’ve been so at odds with my family over the years, because I felt misunderstood when I finally accepted them didn’t do. ” Seeing the world and vice versa, in a way, it created this beautiful truce. “

Ashes to Ink is now available in paperback and Kindle editions.

www.lisalucca.com

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After 30 years, Castro Gay Sex Club and Sauna Eros (2051 Market St.) has announced that it will move to a new, unknown location.

Eros owner Ken Rowe told BrokeAss Stuart this week that the club is closing and they have signed a new lease “closer to downtown”.

It is currently unclear when Eros will officially close its doors on Market Street, but a moving celebration is scheduled for Sunday, December 12th.

Eros is from 2051 Market St. | Image: Google

“We’re moving, but we want you to take a look around, celebrate with us again,” Rowe said on Facebook. “[A]and find out more about our exciting new opening in 2022. “

Hoodline asked Eros for comment but received no response.

Eros opened on Market Street in 1992 at the height of the AIDS epidemic for at least three decades.

A now removed real estate listing from last year indicated the two-story, roughly 7,040-square-foot building was up for sale at an undisclosed price.

“We don’t want to say too much about the new location because we’re working with the town hall and stakeholders to get the development approved in the near future,” Rowe told BrokeAss Stuart Has a firm grip on the status quo. Hopefully changes will be proposed very soon. “

“Eros is the only gay sex club in town right now, so SF will have a few months without a legal sex club,” added Rowe.

Photo: Ken Rowe / Instagram

In February 2020, before the COVID-19 outbreak began, District 8 supervisor Rafael Mandelman introduced law that would lift the city’s bathhouse ban, which has been in place since 1984.

The law passed the Board of Directors in July 2020 and was passed by the Ministry of Health in January 2021. However, the opening of a new bathhouse was blocked by zoning issues with the SF planning department.

Hoodline readers will recall that SoMa’s Blow Buddies closed after 32 years in business last year, as did the Watergarden bathhouse in San Jose, which had been in operation since 1977. Berkeley’s Steamworks at 2107 4th St. will remain open.

While many companies struggled to stay open during the pandemic, Rowe said in an interview with Hoodline last year, “We assume we will roll with this pandemic as we did with HIV.”

Update, 4 p.m.: Ken Rowe announced to Hoodline that Eros will officially close its doors at its Market St. location on Wednesday, December 15th.

“Our lease expired in the summer and we were able to get an extension through the end of the year,” said Rowe. “Our rent would go up.”

“The landlords here have been great and they only bought the building a little over a year ago,” added Rowe. “They look at their own investments and we understand that.”

Rowe currently declined to indicate Eros’ new location due to ongoing problems with the planning code.

Rowe tells Hoodline that if the city doesn’t make the changes to the planning code, Eros can terminate the lease. “It might or may not all come together,” Rowe said.

Rowe says he is disappointed that Eros will leave the Castro after three decades. “When the founders started Eros, they wanted to be right on Main Street, not hidden in a remote part of town,” Rowe said.

Rowe says they spent a lot of time looking for a new location at the Castro but were unsuccessful. “The people we spoke to weren’t interested in contacting us,” Rowe said.

Rowe tells Hoodline that they worked with both the Office of District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman and the Castro / Upper Market Community Benefit District to find a new location.

Although they couldn’t stay at Castro, Rowe is hoping Eros will reopen in one of the queer cultural districts like the Transgender District or the Leather & LGBTQ District.

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Ex-Pastor Joel Barrett was just a kid when he realized he was different.

“I have memories of thinking about boys when I was four and five years old. There was a boy in my class who had olive skin and dark hair and I fell in love with him, ”Joel, 55, told The Mirror.

It was only when Joel of the United States reached puberty that he began to understand his feelings – he was attracted to boys.

But being gay was not part of Joel’s conservative Baptist upbringing, and he was brought up to believe that homosexuality was a sin.

The father of three described his church as a little less extreme in its faith than the Westboro Baptist Church – which is known to stake the funerals of fallen soldiers and celebrate human tragedy as a gift from God.

Joel, on Instagram as @Joelspeaksout, went through decades of turmoil trying to hide his sexuality
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Picture:

Joel Barrett)

“Everything I’ve heard about homosexuality was horrific growing up. I heard preachers standing in the pulpit shouting that all gays should be shipped to an island, infected and let die.

“There has been a lot of ridicule of female men trying to scare you,” he said.

Instead of facing his feelings, Joel suppressed his sexuality and rushed into worship.

“Most people thought I was godly, but I knew if they ever found out I was gay, that would change immediately. So I started this cycle of hiding and burying the truth. “

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Over the years, Joel told himself that his feelings would go away when he reached his next goal, such as going to Bible school or meeting a girl.

When he was 23 years old, Joel walked down the altar and married a woman.

“It was the next ‘right’ thing to do. I didn’t knowingly deceive anyone, but I thought that was what I should be doing – find a good Christian wife.

“But nothing has changed in me. I was like, ‘Wow, now I’m married and I have these feelings,’ ”he said.

At 23, Joel married and raised a family in the hopes that his feelings for men would go away
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Picture:

Joel Barrett)

While embarking on married life and pursuing a career in the Church as a pastor, Joel described a life of constant feelings of fear and shame “while hiding his sexuality.

To cope with his secret, he started ‘cruising’ – finding sex and intimacy with other men in parks and other public spaces.

“It was a quick fix and I was immediately full of guilt and fear. It meant that someone actually knew I was gay and I was worried that they would show up in my real life. “

From then on, every Sunday when Joel went to the church platform to speak to 500 people, he would scan the audience to see if there were any men he was intimate with.

Joel became a pastor and preached to hundreds of people every Sunday
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Picture:

Joel Barrett)

But one day after moving to another state, Joel encountered another cruiser who took him twice.

“When I got into the vehicle, I saw him and felt like I was looking in the mirror. I just thought: ‘He is you’. “

After that meeting, Joel decided to undergo conversion therapy.

Although his experience wasn’t comparable to the violent portrayals in films, Joel says the next few years were the darkest of his life.

“I wanted to die. I didn’t want to kill myself, but I wanted someone else to kill me.

“IVF gave me my miracle baby, but the pain caused me to be tied to the bed with uncontrollable anger”

“I saw counselors and told them every dark secret for three years. No one has ever thrown the Bible over to me, but they asked questions like whether I had an arrogant mother or an absent father, ”he explained.

“None of this is based on any kind of science. It is mainly based on belief. “

In a description of the therapy on his website, Joel wrote: “I went to individual and group counseling, went to retreats, read the books, went to conferences, listened to the speakers, fought evil spirits with the counselor, cried and prayed like never before in my life.”

Yet after three years of “talking and praying”, Joel made no progress and became frustrated.

Joel tried to fight his sexuality for years but now lives happily and openly as a gay man and wants to bridge a gap between the LGBTQ + community and the Church
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Picture:

Joel Barrett)

“I asked my counselor to put me in touch with some people who were successful after therapy. But he said no.

“He told me that if they talked to me, everyone was either ashamed of needing the counseling in the first place or too afraid of relapsing.”

After sending himself through Hell for three years and now 36 years old, he realized something. He was gay and that wasn’t going to change.

Despite his relief that he was no longer keeping the secret, he then went through the riot of telling his wife he was gay and ending the marriage.

Joel speaks at conferences and events to share his story and encourage others to happily live the way they are
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Picture:

Joel Barrett)

“Going through the divorce was like admitting failure,” he said, adding that it was difficult to navigate life as an openly gay man.

“I knew I was gay, but I didn’t know what it was like.”

As part of the process, Joel stopped going to church – another big change in his life.

“I had to clear the rubble of 36 years of my life and fight. I realized that I had to get rid of that before I could build up again. “

Over time, Joel met his current husband, David Seymour.

Joel and David have been happily married for 15 years
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Picture:

Aaron Burson)

“I went out with a couple of guys shortly after I came out and went through a kind of ‘gay puberty’,” he joked.

But after meeting David, Joel knew it was time to settle down.

“That was perfect timing. I always told David he was my breath of fresh air, ”said Joel.

Meanwhile, Joel’s three children were approaching their teens and he decided to introduce them to David.

“They were difficult to drive on, but gradually David just became a part of their lives. They always understood him and saw him as a friend, ”he said.

Joel describes his loving husband David as a “breath of fresh air” and has dedicated his book to him
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Picture:

Aaron Burson)

Now, almost 20 years after coming out, Joel is still happily married to David. He wrote about his experience in a book called Godly … But Gay, which is dedicated to his husband.

On Instagram as @Joelspeaksout he works as a motivational coach who helps others through difficult times and is happy with who he is. He also says he wants to bridge the gap between some religions and the LGBTQ + community.

“My belief is personal. I am not an anti-religion, and if you are part of a denomination that makes you a better person then keep doing it.

“But if you’re part of a spiritual community that tells you you’re broken, get out,” he warned.

“I believe in the power of storytelling and tell my story because it humanizes my experience. Growing up, the only images I had in my head of LGBTQ people were people in San Francisco dancing half-naked in the street.

“It’s easy to see people as ‘others’, but when we tell these stories we can see ourselves as people.”

Godly … But Gay is out now and can be bought on Amazon

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Myth: Being gay is a “choice”

According to a 2015 poll by the Pew Research Center, Americans are equally divided on whether sexual orientation is a choice or is inherently determined, with about 40 percent of respondents saying either side. But the percentage of people who believe sexual orientation is not a choice has nearly doubled in the past few decades, up from about 20 percent when the Los Angeles Times conducted a similar poll in 1985.

The myth has strong legal ramifications: the strongest argument anti-homosexual activists can use to remove precautions against discrimination against the LGBTQ community is the claim that LGBTQ people were not born into their sexuality, but instead were themselves to “chose” to be part of marginalized groups.

FACTS: A study by Andrea Ganna et al. from 2019, published in Science, examined the genes of 492,664 people and concluded that “same-sex sexual behavior is not influenced by one or a few genes, but by many”.

Based on this and other evidence, most researchers have come to the conclusion that sexuality is determined by a combination of environmental, emotional, hormonal, and biological components, which does not make sexual orientation a choice, but instead is controlled by a variety of uncontrollable factors becomes.

While there is no consensus on what combination of factors produce sexual orientation at the individual level, the American Psychological Association notes that “most people have little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation”.

MYTH: Gay relationships don’t last

This notion that homosexual couples do not take their relationships / partners as seriously as heterosexual couples derives in part from the history of gay couples who cannot legally admit their bond with one another.

FACTS: Several studies have been published that refute this myth, involving tens of thousands of gay, lesbian, and straight participants and their partners providing feedback on the stability of their relationships.

A 2017 study of homosexual and heterosexual couples by researchers at Bowling Green State University found that opposite-sex and same-sex female couples had more stability in their relationships than same-sex male couples. The BGSU concluded that this is because gay and bisexual men are more exposed to stressors that lead to problems in their relationships.

Research by UCLA psychologist Ilan Meyer has found that female same-sex couples prioritize emotional intimacy more than male same-sex couples, which means that they can support the partnership for longer.

Two studies published in the journal Developmental Psychology in 2008 showed that same-sex couples are just as engaged in their romantic relationships as heterosexual couples. One of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that there was no difference in engagement or relationship satisfaction between gay and straight couples, and even found that lesbian couples were “particularly effective at conflict resolution.”

MYTH: Bisexuality and pansexuality are the same.

Bisexual is used by many people as a collective term for anyone who is not heterosexual or homosexual. But in reality there are many different forms of sexuality.

FACTS: Although both imply that someone is attracted to more than one gender, bisexual and pansexual are not synonyms.

Bisexual people define their sexuality on the basis of romantic attraction to two genders; hence the prefix “bi”. However, bisexuality has different conditions for each person. A bisexual man may be 30% attracted to men and 70% to women. Or a bisexual woman can be equally attracted to both sexes.

But gender categories are not limited to “male” and “female”, which enables people to identify as non-binary or genderqueer, which means that they identify as neither male nor female.

Bisexuals may or may not be romantically attracted to non-binary people, but even if they are, they are still considered bisexual. Non-binary people can also identify as bisexual if they are also attracted to male, female, or non-binary people.

Pansexuality refers to being attracted to all people regardless of their sexual orientation. This also includes agents; those who do not identify with any gender. Although pansexual people are attracted to all genders, they are not attracted to every person. Personality, physique, morals, etc. are also important for pansexual people.

MYTH: Same-sex upbringing is harmful to children

The belief that straight couples – and preferably married couples – make better parents is deeply ingrained in the belief systems of many Americans for both political and religious reasons. Some proponents of this position, including many with political or religious agendas, have opposed changing government policies to allow same-sex parenting and adoption.

FACTS: Statistics show that restricting parenthood to heterosexual couples leaves many children out entirely, rather than being adopted and nurtured by gay couples who might give them opportunities to develop.

“Same-sex couples are seven times more likely to raise an adoptive or foster child than opposite-sex couples,” concluded a July 2018 letter from the UCLA Williams Institute. It found that between 2014 and 2016 among couples who raised children, 2.9 percent of same-sex couples raised foster children, compared with 0.4 percent of same-sex couples.

Adoption and foster care laws vary from state to state, but each year thousands of children age before they are adopted or fostered, which has long-term implications for their mental health. Only three percent of those who get older earn a college degree. Seven out of 10 women who get older will get pregnant before the age of 21, according to the National Foster Youth Institute.

Divorce can have harmful effects on children. A 2020 HealthLine article lists depression, substance abuse, future problems in the child’s own relationships, and more. However, instead of beating up the parents for the breakup, the article provides ways to help the kids adjust. The same advice can be given to children of gay parents if they experience bullying or fear.

MYTH: People who make a transition will regret it later in life

Arguments against sex confirmation procedures, such as surgery and hormones, include the idea that the person receiving treatment could have an adverse impact and that they could change their mind.

FACTS: Studies show that hormone therapy and surgery often help people who identify as transgender love their bodies and greatly improve their mental wellbeing.

A 2017 study, led by a team of Dutch researchers, showed that gender dysphoria and body dissatisfaction significantly decreased after these procedures. The depression and “lower psychological function” patients experienced prior to the procedure were all caused by the discomfort they felt in their own bodies, the researchers concluded. Hormone-based and surgical interventions improved body satisfaction in these patients.

A 2016 systematic review published in Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment found that estrogen hormone therapy had positive effects on the emotional and mental health of transgender people from male to female. Patients reported a decrease in depression, feeling happier and more confident in their bodies, and fewer symptoms of dissociative problems.

A 2021 analysis of a 2015 survey published in JAMA Surgery found that transgender and gender-specific people (TGD) who had gender-affirming surgery were “significantly less likely to experience mental distress last month, tobacco smoking last year and last year exhibited “. Thoughts of suicide compared to VHS patients without a history of gender-affirming surgery. “

“The decision to transition was one of the most important and difficult decisions I have ever made,” Arin Jayes, 30, a non-binary trans man, wrote in an email.

“I didn’t really know it was right until I did it. That statement may seem radical and scary. In fact, it’s a little existential because it took a leap of faith, ”he said. “One might ask,“ Why on earth would you do something so permanent if you weren’t sure? ”As someone who’s been there, I can tell if it doesn’t feel right, you know. It is important to trust yourself and your physical autonomy. “

The post New reveals transferring away from previous stereotypes of homosexual life appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The San Francisco Regulatory Authority has appointed a Malaysian-Chinese gay asylum to a city inspectorate committee. Hans How is the first LGBTQ immigrant who is not yet a US citizen to serve on a local advisory board.

Regulators unanimously voted 11-0 at their March 23 meeting to include How along with Bernita Burge, Jon Jacobo and John Baranski on the Housing Stability Fund’s Board of Directors. Their term of office ends on December 13, 2022.

Regulators also appointed Davida Sotelo Escobedo, a city-raised Chicanx trans binary from Oakland, to the fund’s regulator. Their term of office ends on December 13, 2024.

The board approved Remhai Menelik, General Fujioka, Fernando Marti, Shanti Singh and Alex Lantsberg to serve in the supervisory authority, which also ends on December 13, 2024.

How has the second non-citizen been approved for membership on any of the city’s public oversight bodies in recent weeks? Earlier this month, Sarah Souza, a DACA recipient from Brazil, received approval to join the city’s Immigrant Rights Commission.

Souza and How were both instrumental in last fall’s successful campaign to end Proposition C, the amendment to the Emerging Citizens’ Charter, in November. It brought urban policy in line with a change in state law introduced in 2019 that made it possible for non-citizens to be appointed to national supervisory and advisory bodies.

The Housing Stability Fund Oversight Board is also the result of the adoption of two city election measures passed in November, supported by District 5 supervisor Dean Preston. Proposition K approved 10,000 additional units of permanently affordable housing in San Francisco and also enabled the creation of community housing, a form of affordable housing for the common good, the collection of low rents, and the creation of a wide range of incomes.

And part of Prop I is used to pay for such apartments. A higher tax was introduced on property sales in the city worth $ 10 million or more.

The fund’s regulator will make recommendations and provide guidance on how to use the city’s Housing Stability Program fund for social housing development. The money is monitored by the Mayor’s Office for Housing and Community Development and used for purposes such as purchasing land, building or renovating housing developments, and providing loans and grants. The city office can appoint one person to the eleven-member supervisory body.

How did I apply for asylum in the US after being persecuted in Malaysia, a country where LGBTQ citizens may face up to 20 years imprisonment? How, who has lived in San Francisco for four years, became an asylum in December after winning his case just before Christmas.

He is a volunteer vice president of AsylumConnect, a not-for-profit technology organization that has created a website and mobile app for LGBTQ + asylum seekers. How has you dealt with issues of affordable housing in various functions since 2017, most recently as an Impact Investment Associate at New Island Capital Management?

How promised to use an equity lens as a member of the advisory board at the board committee hearing on March 15 that recommended which applicants to join the fund’s board of directors. He noted that he brings his experience of public housing with him, and when he arrived in San Francisco, he was living in a single-occupancy hotel in Chinatown.

“I am determined to capitalize on my experience in affordable housing and development and gain experience for marginalized communities and use my experience as a non-citizen in the housing authority,” How, who now lives in Nob Hill, told the panel.

As a campaign coordinator at Jobs with Justice in San Francisco, Escobedo focuses on the housing needs of union members and other workers in the city. As a result, much of the work they do overlaps with the remit of the oversight board, leading Escobedo to apply to be one of its founding members.

“I am fighting for the ability of workers to stay housed in San Francisco. This body seems like an opportunity to build public housing that really works for all San Franciscans and all workers in the city,” said Escobedo, who is a 2018 San Francisco was an intern in the Housing Affordability Planning department.

They told the Bay Area reporter they were interested in returning to town at some point. However, due to the COVID pandemic, you plan to stay in Oakland for the time being.

“We’ll see how the year goes,” said Escobedo.

Regulators also voted Tuesday to allocate just over $ 10 million in property tax revenue, the first to be donated from the money generated by Prop I to the purchase, creation and operation of affordable social housing through the Housing Stability Fund . A similar amount was allocated to the city’s Rent Resolution and Relief Fund to help tenants and small homeowners who have amassed COVID-related debt.

“This is housing equity in action,” said Preston. “The Franciscans voted overwhelmingly to ask for more from the richest real estate investors, and today the board honored the electoral mandate by using that money to help tenants and small homeowners struggling with re-rent and To finance permanently affordable housing. “

Web Extra: You can find more queer political news Monday morning at http://www.ebar.com under Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion. This week’s column covered the renovation of an AIDS memorial in Los Angeles and a call for the names of those lost to the epidemic to be added.

Stay up to date with the latest LGBTQ political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes

Do you have a tip about LGBTQ politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829-8836 or email m.bajko@ebar.com

Help keep the Bay Area Reporter going through these troubled times. To support local, independent LGBTQ journalism, consider becoming a BAR member.

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SAN FRANCISCO – (BUSINESS WIRE) – Alpine Investors (“Alpine”), a midsize private equity firm focused on people-focused to build lasting businesses, announced today that it is partnering with Frank Gay Services (“Frank Gay”), a plumbing company , HVAC, electrical and electrical contractor, mechanical services company based in Orlando, Florida. The terms of the private transaction were not disclosed.

Frank Gay joins Best Home Services (“Best”), a nationally award-winning HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and repair company based in Naples, Florida, to serve as the foundation for Apex Service Partners (“Apex”), Alpine new venture to act platform that will be a partnership of the leading private and commercial service companies. The companies will continue to operate independently under their respective brands.

Alpine has extensive experience in the HVAC, plumbing and electrical services sectors. We are excited to use our expertise to quickly make Apex a market leader,” said Daniel Cohen, Vice President, Alpine. “Best and Frank Gay have an exceptional reputation in the industry. The merger makes Apex an attractive home for other founders looking for a growth partner for their company.”

Alpine plans to invest at least $ 100 million in equity in founder-owned companies over the next five years to help Apex become a national leader. The company successfully followed a similar strategy with what later became the Wrench Group, providing HVAC and plumbing services to the Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Phoenix markets, which had sales of over $ 150 million and was subsequently sold to Investcorp in 2016.

“Home and Commercial Services is a fragmented marketplace where Apex can continue to empower large companies to accelerate growth with our resources and support,” said AJ Brown, CEO of Apex, headquartered in Tampa, Florida. “Through the Apex partnership, these companies can leverage the expertise of some of the best operators in the country and have access to capital to build new facilities, invest in their teams, provide the best possible equipment and training for technicians, and ultimately improve the experience of their customers and the career opportunities of employees. ”

Brown, an Alpine CEO-in-residence, was previously CFO of construction software company Avitru, a former Alpine portfolio company. Brown owns Will Matson, who serves as Apex’s Head of M&A and CFO. HVAC, plumbing, and electrical service owners interested in joining Apex should contact Will Matson at Wmatson@apexservicepartners.com or 817-614-1242.

“Switching leadership can be difficult in such a customer-centric industry,” said Frank Gay, founder of Frank Gay Services. “Alpine’s strong focus on people and relationships sets it apart among financial companies and positions Apex well to thrive in a competitive, high-touch industry like ours. We couldn’t be more excited about our future and partnership with Alpine. ”

Orchard MB acted as the exclusive transaction advisor to Frank Gay Services.

Apex service partner information

Apex Service Partners is an HVAC, plumbing and electrical services group that aims to partner with world-class service providers to build an industry-leading national platform. Apex is focused on harnessing the power of people to build a strong network of industry leaders who can share resources, best practices and expertise to provide customers with unparalleled service and employee opportunity.

About alpine investors

Alpine is a human-run private equity firm dedicated to building lasting businesses by working with, learning from, and developing with exceptional people. Alpine specializes in medium-sized companies in the software and service industry. The PeopleFirst strategy includes a CEO-in-residence program in which Alpine initially works with CEOs and integrates them into companies as part of the transaction. This offers a clear solution for situations where additional or new management is desired after the transaction. More information is available at http://www.alpineinvestors.com/.

About Best Home Services

Best Home Services was founded in 1980 as a family electrical services business that has since expanded to include HVAC, plumbing and repairs under the leadership of brothers Chadd and Keegan Hodges. Best operates in southwest Florida and is headquartered in Naples, Florida and has two other offices in Sarasota and Fort Myers. Their mission is centered on providing our customers with the best of all services. Best is a nationally award-winning company focused on growth and world-class customer service. They employ around 300 full-time team members, including certified technicians, who ensure the highest level of customer service and provide simple, flexible and trustworthy service. Best Home Services specializes in service work in residential areas.

About Frank Gay Services

Frank Gay Services was founded in 1981 as a one-man plumbing company. The company has grown organically to become one of the largest service companies in central Florida, providing plumbing, HVAC and electrical services to residential, commercial and municipal customers. Work ethic, integrity, and exceptional team members delivering top-notch service have enabled Frank Gay Services to stand out from the competition. Frank Gay Services is headquartered in Orlando and has a satellite office in Tampa. The company has 140 service vehicles and 175 full-time employees who have a plan to expand their radius of success in the years to come.

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