Gene Elder, the archivist at the Happy Foundation, says the drag brunches at W.D. Deli were the most important events in San Antonio queerdom this year. “I believe the personal is political,” he told the Current. We might argue that the closing of the Diversity Center, the continuation of gay-positive events — the AIDS Walk, Pridefest and its 5,000 attendees, the Gay Pride Parade and its white donkey — and the plaque the City dedicated to late Kangaroo Court owner and River Walk-business pioneer Hap Veltman along the river (or how about the battle to secure San Antonio AIDS Foundation funding?) edge out Caesar salad and shrimp quiche. Still, there’s something to be said for the importance of maintaining SA’s brunchtime, Mimosa-convivial spirit for a 46,000-person community (Census figures).
And there’s more work to do, the Gay Straight Alliance at Brackenridge High School told QSanAntonio after a gay homecoming banner was removed by two faculty members on October 27 before a pep rally. Then there are the homophobes on KSLR-AM Christian talk radio with whom re-elected County Judge Monica Guerrero had to contend on-air, and the attacks on Councilwoman Elena Guajardo that seem tempered with more than just concern for the Zachry employee’s suicide she’s linked with. And hey, crackpots! Quit egging the Heat’s balcony already!
We’re not completely in the dark ages (though we’re no New Jersey, whose courts recently backed full rights for same-sex couples): This year the Human Rights Campaign gave hometown companies AT&T and Clear Channel Communications a 100 percent rating in their Corporate Equality Index (rating how businesses treat gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees and consumers). San Antonio-based H-E-B got a 40 (but give the Charles Butt gang props for enduring three anti-gay pickets because of a donation the grocer made to PrideFest).
