San Francisco Queer Community Speaks OUT Against Proposition 85

Leaders in the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender community are speaking out against Proposition 85, an anti-choice measure on the November ballot that endangers California’s most vulnerable teens. Young women who come from homes where they are victims of violence, abuse or incest can’t turn to a parent. Instead, they may delay medical care, or seek out risky back alley abortions. LGBT community members are also deeply concerned that Proposition 85 is part of a larger strategy to restrict individuals’ control over their own bodies.

“San Francisco is a pro-choice city and California is a pro-choice state,” said Assembly member, Mark Leno. “The anti-choice extremists who put notification on the ballot again this year, even after voters rejected 73 last year, are promoting their anti-choice agenda at the expense of California’s most vulnerable teens. The backers of 85 -Evangelicals for Social Action, Central California Right to Life, and the Traditional Values Coalition- will find out that California will not accept this threat to teens and choice.”


Proposition 85 is part of the larger right-wing strategy to restrict people’s control over their bodies. Its backers, whose right-wing political agenda targets both reproductive freedom and LGBT rights, include: Traditional Values Coalition, Evangelicals for Social Action, and Right to Life of Central California. Right-wing groups such as these seek to control sexuality, gender conformity, reproductive choice, and the legal definitions of family. They are working together to roll back the hard-won gains of both the LGBT and reproductive rights movements, attacking our individual rights at the local and national levels through the courts and through the legislature.

The LGBT community stands together to protect choice because the movement for LGBT rights and the movement for a woman’s right to choose are deeply connected. “The gay liberation movement owes a lot to the Feminist Movement’s work around reproductive freedoms in the 1960s and 1970s,” said Jane Martin from Pride at Work. “Same-sex relations between consenting adults could not have been decriminalized without the legal framework created by previous decisions in reproductive rights cases.”

In the weeks following the press conference at noon today at City Hall, LGBT volunteers will be walking door to door to educate voters in our community. Pride at Work’s Get OUT the Vote campaign is canvassing every Saturday, and phone banking Tuesday and Thursday evenings. For more information on upcoming events or to get involved, volunteers can contact Pride at Work via email at PrideAtWorkSF [at] yahoo.com, visit http://www.sfprideatwork.org, or call 415-864-8770 x 757.

P R I D E @ W O R K, the only Lesbian Gay Transgender Bisexual Labor organization, mobilizes mutual support between the organized Labor Movement and the LGBT Community for social and economic justice.