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Public Nudity Ban Eyed in Fed-up San Francisco

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photo credit: APSAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco may be getting ready to shed its image as a city where anything goes, including clothing.

City lawmakers are scheduled to vote Tuesday on an ordinance that would prohibit nudity in most public places, a blanket ban that represents an escalation of a two-year tiff between a devoted group of men who strut their stuff through the city’s famously gay Castro District and the supervisor who represents the area.

Supervisor Scott Wiener’s proposal would make it illegal for a person over the age of 5 to “expose his or her genitals, perineum or anal region on any public street, sidewalk, street median, parklet or plaza” or while using public transit.

A first offense would carry a maximum penalty of a $100 fine, but prosecutors would have authority to charge a third violation as a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine and a year in jail. Exemptions would be made for participants at permitted street fairs and parades, such as the city’s annual gay pride event and the Folsom Street Fair, which celebrates sadomasochism and other sexual subcultures.

Wiener said he resisted introducing the ordinance, but felt compelled to act after constituents complained about the naked men who gather in a small Castro plaza most days and sometimes walk the streets au naturel. He persuaded his colleagues last year to pass a law requiring a cloth to be placed between public seating and bare rears, yet the complaints have continued.

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Strapped San Francisco Slashes Government Services But Now Offering Free Sex Change Operations

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In the midst of cash-strapped Californians approving new taxes to prevent further cuts in essential state services, San Francisco health officials appear to have found the money to fund what they say is a much-needed service to residents living in the City by the Bay:

Sex changes.

The gender-switching surgeries are part of a comprehensive program for treating transgender people that the city’s Health Commission green-lighted on Tuesday and announced two days later. Backers say it will help ease the mental anguish of people who feel they are trapped in bodies of the wrong gender, but critics wonder why the taxpayers should foot the bill.

“Taxpayers cannot afford this, as there are unintended costs and unintended consequences unrelated to the actual surgery, such as their longer-term hormone treatment, psychology needs and other longer term health issues,” said Thomas Moyer, a City by the Bay resident and author of “A Conservative Survival Guide to San Francisco.”

Under Mayor Ed Lee, the city’s current budget topped $7 billion for the first time in history this year. In addition to the local tax burden, residents have seen their cash-strapped state slash an array of services.

Read more: https://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/09/gender-bender-spenders-san-francisco-to-foot-bill-for-sex-changes/#ixzz2BpN2TeGw

Nancy Pelosi’s New Catholic Archbishop: US may be moving toward despotism

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Photo credit: Leader Nancy Pelosi

Recent government attacks on religious liberty have made him fear the United States might be headed toward “despotism,” the newly appointed archbishop of San Francisco—a city represented by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi—warned in a recent speech.

“When I saw what was happening and my eyes were opened, it made me fear that we could be starting to move in the direction of license and despotism,” the Most Reverend Salvatore J. Cordileone said at a May 24 conference on religious liberty at the Ethics in Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

In the same speech, Cordileone also said church leaders “cannot get political in the sense of being partisan,” while noting that protecting religious liberty was not a political issue but an issue of “first principles.”

Cordileone, who holds a doctorate in canon law, currently serves as bishop of Oakland, Calif., and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Subcommittee on the Defense and Promotion of Marriage. He has been a leading spokesman for Catholic teachings on marriage and sexual morality and an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage and civil unions.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Cordileone archbishop of San Francisco on Friday. Cordileone will formally take up that position on Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis, the patron saint of San Francisco.

Read more from this story HERE.