Long Beach : Police, Gay Activists on ‘Life and Times’ Program
The Long Beach Police Department and a local gay activist group are scheduled to be featured in KCET-TV’s “Life and Times” series Oct. 29.
Filmmaker Arthur Dong filmed an undercover police sting operation against gay bashers for the documentary “Straight Hate,” but he concentrates on Long Beach residents Jack Castiglione and Jeff Ziegler.
Castiglione, chairman of the Long Beach Police Chief’s Gay and Lesbian Advisory Group, runs the Hate Crimes Reporting Hotline and has just published a book, “A Straight Person’s Guide to Gay People’s Anguish” about the harassment faced by gays and lesbians.
“I’m glad that other people will see the unique cooperative coalition we’ve developed with the police,” Castiglione said.
Ziegler runs the Long Beach Team Project, a volunteer group that patrols the gay and lesbian clubs along Broadway near downtown to try to prevent attacks.
Dong, who was threatened and pelted with rotten eggs in San Francisco in 1976, called himself a double minority. “I’m Chinese and gay, so this is an emotional project for me,” he said.
A former news producer at KCET, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his documentary “Forbidden City, U.S.A.” about an underground nightclub for Chinese performers in the 1930s.
“Straight Hate” will air at 7:30 p.m. on Channel 28.
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