activism – Queer Silicon Valley

Before Marriage, a Fight for Commitments

February 23, 2021February 17, 2021 by Steven Peck

Amy Brinkman Katie Viall wedding ceremony

Same-sex couples who made lifelong commitments to each other never found the occasion printed in the pages of non-LGBTQ publications in the South Bay.

That changed on Nov. 7, 1992, when the San Jose Mercury News began publishing announcements of same-sex commitment ceremonies within the paper of record’s pages — reversing its policy of only featuring heterosexual couples.

Amy Brinkman and Kathleen Viall were the first same-sex couple to appear on the Saturday Lifestyle section’s wedding page, announcing their Sept. 12, 1992, commitment ceremony alongside a black-and-white portrait of the new brides in their wedding gowns.

Prior to dating in 1990, the two knew each other for years while working within the community; Amy worked for Santa Clara County in substance abuse services, while Kathleen ran a residential program for the AIDS Resources, Information & Services (ARIS) Foundation.

Their places of employment and address were left out of the announcement for safety and security reasons.

“It was a challenging thing for me to do, because I wasn’t out and I don’t know that I’m still out,” Amy said, referring to the fact that she is bisexual. “Katy always thought that they blurred our picture on purpose because they thought that it was a big step and didn’t want to shock people too much … but we were just happy that they changed their mind.”

According to Our Paper/Your Paper, an LGBTQ community newspaper in the South Bay, the change brought the Mercury News up to speed with similar-sized papers nationally, including the Oakland Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. By November 1992, the Washington Post was still considering the decision. The New York Times didn’t run a same-sex commitment announcement until 2002.

Amy and Kathleen’s openness about their relationship helped jumpstart conversations – even harsh, dehumanizing ones from her family – that slowly helped educate the American public, one story at a time.

These shifts started to impact laws around the country, including in Santa Clara County where officials were discussing providing domestic partner benefits.

“All these things seemed to fall into line together and push each other forward,” Amy said.

Months of pressure and protest

Reversing the heterosexual-only policy was a focused effort of several members of the local LGBT community and the South Bay Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). In addition to a letter writing and phone call campaign, organizers talked with supportive employees at the paper who could push for the change on the inside.

A Valentine’s Day protest at the Mercury News’ Ritter Park Drive office brought public attention to the policy at the start of 1992, which included GLAAD speakers, members from Queer Nation, previously denied same-sex couples and a vow renewal ceremony.

Mercury News’ then-publisher Larry Jinks defended the paper’s position, saying that “wedding announcements have always been for ceremonies sanctioned by the state.” That’s why Amy and Kathleen originally heard “no” after they first submitted their announcement on October 8, 1992.

Christine Schmidt, a South Bay GLAAD co-chair, said while Jinks’ explanation was plausible, it was wrong, citing other papers’ decisions to print same-sex announcements across the country.

“The Mercury News subscribes to an obsolete, prejudicial and unfair state law as the basis for their discrimination against lesbian and gay couples, when it is in their power to help move society in the direction of a more enlightened view of same-sex unions,” Christine said. “The Merc chooses to ignore the fact that the government won’t let us get legally married. Heterosexual couples can make that choice but right now gay and lesbian couples cannot … basically they are afraid to take a stand for fairness.”

Robert Greeley, co-chair of the South Bay GLAAD, said months of continued pressure and meetings with the publisher ultimately helped move the dial towards fairness in the Mercury News.

“To our great dismay, the more we pressed them, the more they dug in their heels,” Robert said at the time. “I was tickled to see that the Mercury News kept its promise and that our community was now fairly represented on its weddings page.”

Some readers, however, opposed the change and wrote letters to the editor expressing their disagreement: “The implication (of printing announcements) is that homosexual relationships are the equivalent both morally and legally of a marriage between a man and a woman. We believe you are wrong;” “Although you may consider yourselves enlightened, we consider your action both tasteful and an affront to our moral and religious beliefs.”

“They didn’t want anything to do with us”

merc commitment — A clipping of Amy and Kathleen’s commitment in the Nov. 7, 1992 issue of the San Jose Mercury News

That social and cultural backlash was why Robert and South Bay GLAAD sent the newlyweds a thank you and a bouquet of balloons for volunteering to publicly acknowledge their ceremony in the paper – a big step personally for Amy.

“It was scary for me. My family is very religious and ultra-right, and they rejected me because I was with Katy. They pretty much said they didn’t want anything to do with us,” Amy said. “Once I decided that I wanted to marry Katy, I was ready to it (publicly come out), because I felt like I joined that community.”

Amy said 175 coworkers, friends and community members attended their wedding at Christ the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in San Jose, a longtime supportive congregation, in a ceremony that combined traditional hymns, prayers and scripture with pagan traditions.

After the festivities, the brides headed to downtown San Jose for an evening at the Fairmont Hotel.

Kathleen’s family was very involved in the occasion, including her mother cooking a big Italian pasta meal for the reception afterwards.

Amy didn’t have the same reaction from her family. After inviting them to the ceremony, she received unsupportive, rejecting letters from her mother, brother, uncle and aunt. It wasn’t all encompassing; her sister and cousin attended the ceremony and another aunt sent a wedding present.

“I lost what I had with my parents as a result of this, but we had a really good group of friends and they were all in our ceremony,” Amy said. “They supported us 100%.”

Kathleen passed away in 2017 from complications of diabetes and heart disease. Amy lives in South San Jose, in a house Kathleen helped her purchase.

The Commitment Campaign story

March 1, 2021August 1, 2020 by queer silicon valley team

Reflections on the South Bay GLAAD Campaign for Same-Sex Commitment Ceremony Announcements in the San Jose Mercury News

By Robert Greeley

An interesting bit of South Bay LGBTQ history happened 29 years ago in February 1992 when a group of same-sex couples and their friends, led by South Bay GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), held a Valentine’s Day rally at the San Jose Mercury News to protest their policy of excluding same-sex commitment ceremony announcements from their weddings page. What follows are my memories and reflections on that long ago day, set within the context of the full-on campaign for equality that surrounded it.

We at GLAAD couldn’t understand the paper’s insistence on strict legalism when it was totally unnecessary. The times were changing; gay and lesbian couples were becoming more visible and demanding equal treatment in society. The Mercury News was the paper of record in a generally progressive area. We weren’t asking them to be the first paper to print our announcements because the Oakland Tribune had already done so. Their argument was that same-sex marriage was not yet legal. Our response was “so what?”

Although we weren’t surprised by the initial denial, we did encounter a lot more push-back than we expected when we persisted. To our great dismay, the more we pressed them, the more they dug in their heels. At that point we realized we’d have to launch a major offensive to get them to reverse their policy.

We quickly decided on an inside/outside strategy. South Bay GLAAD Co-chair Christine Schmidt and key member Ralph Serpe worked the inside angle – connecting and coordinating with supportive employees at the paper, and dialoguing with and later formally meeting with management – while I headed up the external pressure operation – visibility actions, phone and letter-writing campaigns, rallying the community, encouraging same-sex couples to submit their commitment ceremony announcements, and so forth.

South Bay GLAAD members eagerly took up the challenge and threw themselves into all these activities. For many in our group, while this meant moving outside our comfort zones, it also meant discovering we could raise our voices for a good cause, find the inner strength to be out and proud, and learn the power of activism. For instance, some members were startled to discover they were bolder than they ever imagined when they confronted a Merc executive at a town hall meeting.

The culmination of our visibility campaign was a large, rowdy, full-throated protest on the doorstep of the Mercury News’s headquarters on Ridder Park Drive on Valentine’s Day 1992 – in the rain!

The bad weather did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd, though, who waved colorful signs such as “Celebrate ALL Forms of Love” and “Gertrude and Alice… Why Not?” while fiercely chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, homophobia’s got to go!” and “2-4-6-8, why does the Merc discriminate?” We were grateful that Queer Nation turned out a good number of their members that day in support, and all together we had probably 25 or more highly charged, amped-up protesters demanding equality – it was exhilarating!

gertrude alice sign — Christine Schmidt holding
“Gertrude and Alice… Why Not?”

censorship sign — Christine Schmidt holding
“Gertrude and Alice… Why Not?”

A succession of speakers made our case with great passion and conviction, including couples who had previously been denied by the paper, and another couple publicly renewed their vows. When they finished, our eyes were even damper than the rest of us. I still remember vividly how raw our emotions were that day.

Following the rally at the Merc, a number of us went on to the County building to try to take out marriage licenses – knowing we’d be refused but determined to make the point loudly and publicly that state marriage law discriminated against us. We were boisterous, had fun, and reveled in the camaraderie that comes from being in struggle together against oppression.

While unfortunately we didn’t succeed in drawing any TV coverage that day, we did garner a bit of reporting in the Merc itself, as I recall, and of course the LGBTQ press covered it too. But the largest ripple effect that day was mostly unseen: During the protest one of our leaders received a discreet message that a group of Merc employees were 100% on our side and were “working from within” to press for change. Here was immediate proof that we were having an impact and changing minds!

Empowered by our bold, rainy Valentine’s Day protest, we continued to beat the drum of equal representation for many months thereafter, keeping the pressure on the paper until they finally relented. We were overjoyed when Amy Brinkman and Katy Viall’s announcement ran in November of that year – a sweet victory for them, for us in GLAAD, for our community, and for equality.

[On a personal note, my leadership of South Bay GLAAD and, within that, the campaign for equality in the Merc were the highpoints of my own work as an activist. It was a heady time.]

Imperial Courts

February 2, 2021August 13, 2013 by queer silicon valley team

royal members the annual imperial court event scaled

Kevin Roche, a member of the Imperial Courts, remembers that it was over fifty years ago when groups in Portland and San Francisco first started drag balls. “This is when being in drag was a more transgressive activity than it is considered nowadays,” he said in an interview. This was the beginning of the Imperial Courts on the West Coast. After drag balls were established behind the scenes in 1967, the International Imperial Court System (IICS) was founded in San Francisco and hosted many drag shows and coronation balls. Later IICS was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) organization to raise money for charity while still having a lot of fun.

Mama José, also known as José Julio Sarria, was the first Empress in San Francisco, the mother of all queens participating in the Imperial Courts. Kevin recalled: “She was the mother empress of us all. She rather notoriously declared herself empress when she won a pageant at one of these balls and they were going to crown her queen, and she took the Tiara out of their hands and says, ‘I’ve been a queen all my life. I hear hereby declare myself Empress.’ This was something that was transgressive. This was revolutionary.” Mama José was an outspoken activist for the drag community in San Francisco, whose goals for the Imperial Courts included education and cultivating a greater community sense of gay pride, identity, and unity.

The San Francisco chapter of the Imperial Court is still active today. Mama José died a few years ago, in 2013; a piece about her on the Imperial Court’s website notes that Mama José was “a proud openly gay Latino, drag queen, and one of the great iconic American pioneering political activists and leaders of the modern-day LGBT Civil Rights and Social Justice Movements, [who] gracefully and peacefully passed on from this life after a long battle with cancer at his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at 7:02 AM on Monday, August 19, 2013 in his 90th year blessing this earth.”

Learn more about participating in the Imperial Courts at their website: imperialcouncilsf.org

Casa de San Jose

September 30, 2020January 1, 1972 by queer silicon valley team

In the early days of Casa de San Jose’s informal association of drag queens, they would travel to San Francisco for the city’s world-famous drag shows. Ray Aguilar, a San Jose drag queen, requested permission to form an IICS chapter in San Jose, which formed as Casa de San Jose of Santa Clara County Inc in the early 1970s. In 1990, the organization was reincorporated as The Imperial Royal Lion Monarchy, Inc. of San Jose.

Casa de San Jose elected a full royal court every year: an emperor and empress, crown princes and princesses, czar and czarina, and grand dukes and duchesses. Every March, the Grand Coronation Ball served as large fundraising events and the election of the new emperor, empress, and court. Title rules were as follows: anyone was eligible, regardless of sexual orientation and gender, but they must reside in Santa Clara County and demonstrate successful sponsorship of community fundraising events.

Unlike many other courts, the Imperial Court in San Jose was open to people of all genders and sexual orientations to participate, including running for emperor and empress. Anyone in attendance could vote (with proof of residence) by placing their ballots at a table in the front of the hall to be counted later. Winners were then escorted on stage to be crowned by the host emperor and empress.

Kevin Roche remembers during his time as an Emperor: “My empress is actually transgender and she had strong connections into that community. We actually got a bunch of members of Carla Salon, which is a transgender social club, to come out and join us. Carla’s was a place where they could go and they could dress up and no one would see them, but they could do that at a court event because no one was surprised to see masculine looking people in dresses. A number of them actually joined and were some of our most effective members. That was really fun to see them being in public where that part of themselves could come out.”

Various balls raised money for different causes. The money raised was donated to charitable organizations, including the American Heart Association and American Cancer Research. As the AIDS crisis grew, they began donating to the Visiting Nurses Association and local AIDS charities.

In the early days, almost every drag performer in San Jose was involved in the Imperial Court. To join the Imperial Court, one had to come out during the Closet Ball. The Closet Ball was a way for amateurs new to performing to debut their drag personas and find mentors to help develop their performance. The performers had to be sponsored by an established queen and they were given an hour to transform into their drag persona.

Kevin Roche’s experience at the Closet Ball was showbusiness disappointment. “San Jose has had both drag queens and drag kings. So Lucy [Manhattan] talked me into entering the Closet Ball one year. It was awful. I worked really hard on it and the person who won had actually been performing weekly, but Lucy said, ‘If you’ll forgive me for getting you into this, there’s a charity show I’m doing in a month and I’d like to work with you and help you actually put together an act.’”

In recent years, pageants overtook the Imperial Court in popularity in San Jose. Pageants run outside the Imperial Court system, and many have opted to participate in those instead. The Imperial Court of San Jose dissolved in 2018. Those who wanted to continue participating in court traditions joined the San Francisco Imperial Court, which also permitted them to keep any titles earned in San Jose.