‘Queer Village’ Gay-Rights Monument Unveiled

Gay-rights activists unveiled a monument this week at the West Hollywood site where widespread protests began last year after Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a bill banning job discrimination against homosexuals.

The five-foot-high plaque names several hunger strikers who on two occasions occupied the grassy triangle at Santa Monica and Crescent Heights boulevards to call for anti-AIDS drugs and gay rights legislation. Designating the spot “Queer Village,” the monument also salutes the thousands of marchers who last year joined in the protests against the veto of the bill known as AB 101. It is said to be only the third gay-rights monument in the world.

Critics have said it is too soon to judge the historical importance of those actions and some gays objected to the use of the word queer on the monument. The word is commonly used by younger, more militant homosexuals to identify themselves. Protests also greeted a tent settlement that sprouted up on the same site this fall--with signs saying “Queer Village”--several weeks before Wilson signed a less sweeping version of the bill.

“I as a gay man do not consider myself queer,” said David Welch, a business leader. “With the hundreds of gay, lesbian and straight people who worked for AB 101 and are not included there, I think it’s a slight and it’s wrong.”

Gay and lesbian activists argued that Wilson’s signing of the new bill proved the significance of last year’s actions. They said the monument commemorated all who were in the streets.

“The two weeks of sustained demonstrations of thousands of people, angry, weighed heavily on his mind,” said David Smith, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center. “And that started here.”