With his mother looking up at him (bottom right), Zachary Davenport is embraced by Sister Roma at the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s Aug. 28 rally to “Stop the Violence.” Two weeks earlier, Davenport was gay-bashed by a group of teens as he exite

Several hundred residents alarmed by a spate of recent crimes targeting the LGBT community gathered Friday, Aug. 28, in a rally to “Stop the Violence.” Organized by the San Francisco Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in conjunction with Castro Community on Patrol, the peaceful rally started at Harvey Milk Station (17th/Castro), becoming a procession which eventually made its way to the site of an Aug. 14 hate crime at the corner of Church and Market Streets. 

“When you look at statistics distributed by the police and Castro Community on Patrol, violent crimes – especially in the Castro – are way up,” says Sister Roma, one of the rally’s primary organizers. “The beating of Ray Tilton on Pink Saturday, the fatal shooting that same night and the recent attack on Zachary Davenport are only the three most prominent.”

Roma says she was rocked emotionally by the unrelated June 27 assault on 47-year-old...

By Sister Dana Van Iquity, Mama’s Nun

In April 2001, after several years of research and input from the community, AIDS Emergency Fund (AEF) launched a new initiative: Breast Cancer Emergency Fund (BCEF). Modeled on the successful work of AEF in providing assistance to low-income San Franciscans fighting HIV...

The conservative Pacific Justice Institute petitioned California’s 3rd District Court of Appeals on Aug. 31 to force Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal a Federal District Court ruling that declared California’s Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Proponents of the law have pledged to appeal the District...