Opinion

Dear Mr. Mayor

AN OPEN LETTER to Mayor Gavin Newsom:

As activists who campaigned against your election last year, largely because of your stance on economic and homeless issues, we want to take this opportunity to congratulate you on surprising progressives with your bold and dramatic act challenging the national attack on same-gender marriage. We applaud your taking the offensive against the Bush team's manufacture of this wedge issue – an issue used to shore up the religious-right base of "true believers" while diverting attention from the shambles of war, a widening income gap, and the ongoing collapse of the health care system.

You have set the bar on this issue higher than many dreamed possible at this time in history. You have been strong and clear in defense of equality before the law. You have emboldened government officials and LGBT activists in other parts of the country and moved the dialogue forward to a new level. Many of us cheered you on when you appeared on a recent Charlie Rose syndicated program ... that is, until the very end, when you concluded on the theme of Care Not Cash as your plan to address the issue of homelessness in San Francisco.

While we respectfully and without hesitation give credit to your principled stance on queer marriage, we must also caution that it is but one – albeit an important one – of the many issues before our communities.

Let us be clear: your position on lesbian and gay marriage will not afford you a pass from the progressive community. When you vetoed Sup. Chris Daly's anti-demolition ordinance, for example, it made it harder for people of moderate means – of any sexual orientation – to go on living in San Francisco. Likewise, Care Not Cash was calculated to better serve the hotel owners and restaurant lobby than homeless individuals. In the city's current budget discussions, there have been disturbing warnings of massive layoffs of employees, privatization of city services, and draconian cuts. We are joined in the fight to prevent those "solutions," as we are joined in mobilizing our communities to redress the economic disparities in San Francisco.

It has become trendy for certain Democrats from coast to coast to present themselves as liberal on social issues and conservative on economic ones. In that way, they infer they are basically good people who are politically moderate. And when those Democrats suggest we should be happy at winning some civil rights gains in exchange for our needs for health care or jobs or reasonable rent, we say no way – that's a sham bargain.

So, what kind of Democrat (or democrat) will you be, Mayor Newsom? San Francisco's culture is one of liberalism and social acceptance yet one simultaneously dominated by the economics of huge corporate power. Will you largely represent the Committee on Jobs, or the Chamber of Commerce, or SFSOS at City Hall – or will you try to find common ground with people of color, immigrants, tenants, and poor people?

The quality of life in San Francisco will not stop its decline without new revenue and creative solutions that might offend your traditional allies. Nor can quality of life be maintained for some at the expense of further gouging low-wage workers already making economic sacrifices while they continue to keep the city running – or implementing fee structures or service cuts that disproportionately affect the poor. San Francisco's move forward can happen by cutting administrative waste and bloated positions, restoring the commercial property tax rate, and balancing the budget – for a change – by assessing those who can most afford it.

As candidate Al Sharpton said in his last presidential debate, "the issue before the American people is not about who they go to bed with at night – it's whether either of them will have a job when they wake up in the morning." What are you now willing to do to assure those 4,037 lesbian and gay couples wed at City Hall – along with the rest of us – that there will be economic justice in your city.