Clinton Visit to Bay Area Elicits Small Protest

Met by a small band of demonstrators from this city’s large gay community, President Clinton opened a brief trip to California, his 24th since taking office, with a speech Sunday at the Presidio and a million-dollar fund-raiser at the home of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

About 200 chanting, sign-waving protesters awaited Clinton near Feinstein’s home, denouncing, among other things, his recent statement that he would sign Republican-sponsored legislation against same-sex marriages.

But rumors of massive demonstrations, spread in part by Mayor Willie Brown last week, proved to be greatly exaggerated.

Last week, Brown, speaking through his longtime friend, newspaper columnist Herb Caen, had warned Clinton not to come to the city because of plans for protests. Brown followed that statement by saying that while he would meet Clinton at the airport, he would not participate in events with him.

Clinton had responded by dismissing the warning and saying that he had done more for gay and lesbian Americans than any previous president.

In the end, the large-scale protests did not show up and the mayor did, standing with Clinton at the Presidio and introducing him.

Clinton used the Presidio speech to urge Congress to pass legislation to turn the former Army post into a national park. Such legislation has passed both houses of Congress, but a final bill is stalled, in part because of proposals by some Republicans to have the government turn parts of the park system over to private interests.

Speaking at Crissy Field, a former Army Air Corps airfield in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge, Clinton urged Congress to reject such ideas.

“The overwhelming bipartisan consensus in the United States is that our national parks are part of our national treasure,” he said.

It is not clear that large-scale protests were ever seriously likely here, a city that Clinton carried overwhelmingly in 1992. Indeed, among those who did show up at Feinstein’s $50,000-a-plate fund-raiser to protest, many complained that the city’s major gay organization had become so deeply involved in mainstream Democratic politics that it was unwilling to do anything that might embarrass Clinton.

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Those who did show up, responding to handbills that urged demonstrators to protest “Clinton’s Republicanization,” chanted slogans such as “We want a divorce, Bill,” and carried signs such as one that declared: “You Have Betrayed Us, Clinton.” Others, however, seemed animated by other standard causes of the political left, denouncing the U.S. boycott of Cuba, for example, and calling for a smaller defense budget.

Sue Homer, a 37-year-old political scientist and lesbian activist, said she had come to the protest because “I think we’ve all been taken for granted by Clinton.”

“He took a stance against us on gay marriages when he should have stayed neutral,” Homer said.

She said she had voted for Clinton in 1992 but would back a third-party candidate, perhaps Ralph Nader, this time.

In contrast, at a prayer service earlier Sunday sponsored by mainstream gay organizations at the Metropolitan Community Church in the Castro District, many in the congregation said they still support Clinton over his presumed GOP opponent, Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.).

“Everyone knows at this point that there is a culture war going on, and it is not politically feasible for the president to come out in favor of gay marriages,” said Michael Robinson, a gay member of the Metropolitan congregation for eight years.

Robinson said that he probably will still vote for Clinton this fall and that his political concerns are much broader than the single issue of same-sex marriages.

In fact, much of the anger in the gay community over Clinton’s visit stemmed from a widespread belief that the president’s political advisors were actually hoping for an angry demonstration, thinking that it could help distance him from a community that strongly supported his first presidential bid.

“There is now a new day in San Francisco, and we no longer will accept being used as a scapegoat for political gain,” said Allen White, a publicist and gay activist.

The Metropolitan Community Church performs about 100 same-sex marriage ceremonies each year. At the prayer service, the Rev. Jim Mitulski said Clinton should visit the church and not “base his decision on stereotypes but . . . acquaint himself with real people who make up this congregation.”

Mitulski read his address surrounded by same-sex couples who attend the church. Some brought their children to the pulpit to serve, Mitulski said, as witnesses to the success of same-sex unions.

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Speaking to Clinton, Mitulski said that the gay community “looks to you now to exercise the moral and ethical leadership worthy of your office and to denounce the campaign of prejudice and bigotry that is masked by the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.”

But Mitulski also acknowledged that Clinton has “at times” been supportive of the gay community.

San Francisco County Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who is gay, joked with the congregation that he would not be greeting Clinton at the airport or attending either his public or private appearances in San Francisco, “even though I’ve been practicing my curtsy for weeks.”

“We feel that we have the right to always move forward on the issues that are important to us,” Ammiano said. Clinton, he said to heavy applause, “needs to take a new witness on who we are.”