Category: LGBT rights

Let’s Help Her Through This Tough Time — Visit the GoFundMe Page

Friends,

Judy Forman, “Judy the Beauty on Duty” of The Big Kitchen, urgently needs our help. The past five years have been incredibly challenging for small businesses everywhere, and while The Big Kitchen thankfully remains open, Judy has faced a difficult road.

Following the pandemic, Judy suffered a heart attack. Her recovery has been long and difficult, and impacted her ability to manage the business. This led to unpaid taxes and mounting penalties, which recently resulted in funds being taken directly from her bank accounts – money she desperately needed for essential expenses like rent.
As a friend and someone who has personally benefited from Judy’s incredible generosity over the years, I believe it’s time for us to step up.

More Than a Restaurant: A Lifeline

For over 45 years, Judy and The Big Kitchen have been a cornerstone of the San Diego community. It’s far more than just a place to eat; it’s an unofficial social service agency without the benefit of non-profit status! Judy has consistently fed the hungry, providing meals to the poor and homeless.

July 4, 2025

We, the undersigned, former members of New York’s Gay Liberation Front, condemn the Trump administration and its supporters in all levels of government for their vicious attacks on our community and on other marginalized communities.

The Gay Liberation Front was the first and most radical LGBTQ+ organization formed directly after the Stonewall Uprising in June, 1969. Our guiding message, equal inclusion of all people into society and the body politic, is even more urgent today.

One of the administration’s first targets was the transgender community. It is attempting to eject them from the military. Trans people seeking to renew their passports are now faced with the indignity of having their pre-transition gender stamped on the documents. Ten states now deny them appropriate medical care. The administration is encouraging a climate of hatred that has led to increased violence against trans people.

The Trump administration has cut funds for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, both in the United States and abroad. This will result in a worldwide increase in disease and death— an increase that will not stop at our borders.

By Neal Putnam / Peninsula Beacon / March 22, 2025

An Ocean Beach man has pleaded guilty to transmitting a threatening communication in an email to an ally of the LGBTQ community and suggested violence to her.

George Joseph Wellinger II, 49, will be sentenced on June 9 by U.S. District Court Judge Linda Lopez. She allowed him to remain free on a $50,000 bond with GPS monitoring.

This case involves someone who was interviewed for a KTLA television newscast about the murder of a shop owner in 2023 when she posted a Pride flag outside her business in Lake Arrowhead.

Wellinger threatened the person who gave the interview, writing she was “another alphabet clown that wants to take a dirt nap, too” with a link to the KTLA report.

Cognitive behavioral therapy and LGBTQ+ education will be included in the treatment program for the defendants

By City News Service / January 22, 2025 

Four men pleaded guilty this week to taking part in a string of pellet gun shootings in Hillcrest last fall that police described as hate-related.

The defendants, all 19 years old, were arrested in connection with drive-by attacks on six victims along University Avenue on the night of Sept. 7, 2024.

San Diego police described the crimes at the time as “hate crime-related assaults” and the defendants were initially charged with hate crime allegations that elevated what would be misdemeanor battery counts to felonies.

By Arturo Castanares / La Prensa San Diego / December 18, 2024

A new lawsuit claims the City of San Diego is violating its policy to protect the public from over-reaching surveillance equipment deployed by police without proper approval or transparency.

Three privacy advocates -Lilly Irani, Seth Hall, and Mat Wahlstrom- filed suit after the San Diego Police Department used surveillance systems at the Same Diego Pride Parade and Comic-Con without disclosing their use locations as required by law.

The lawsuit also claims SDPD improperly invoked an exemption for “exigent circumstances” without demonstrating an imminent or emergency threat, as mandated by the City’s TRUST ordinance.

Quisling Pride

By Mat Wahlstrom

Ever heard of “Cop City”? No, that isn’t the name for the unseemly rush to install surveillance cameras throughout Hillcrest before this coming weekend, in violation of the TRUST Ordinance — though there is a direct connection.

I don’t see that it’s been written about here before, so allow me to explain. Cop City is the nickname for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a project to bulldoze hardwood forest and historic structures to build a massive complex — the largest in the nation — for the sole purpose of training law enforcement as urban paramilitary, in a historically Black and unrepresented section of Atlanta.

Not everyone is happy with Point Loma Nazarene’s appointment of a new president.

Longtime provost and chief academic officer Kerry Fulcher was picked after a long and national search for a new leader for the conservative religious campus. Yet, the choice has sparked controversy due to Fulcher’s role in a controversial firing in 2023 of Mark Maddix, PLNU’s dean of theology, due to Maddix’s backing of a former teacher who supported LGBTQ+ people.

The Union-Tribune reported:

A coalition of LGBTQ+ alumni and donors condemned the selection, saying it would hinder the university’s already strained relations not just with some students and faculty but also with San Diego’s LGBTQ+ community …

By Gary Robbins / San Diego Union-Tribune / April 20, 2024

A decision by Point Loma Nazarene University to limit the screening of a documentary about the Bible and homosexuality has angered students who say the move was disrespectful to the gay community and is having a chilling effect on free speech and academic inquiry.

The outcry is the latest in a series of controversies that have strained relations between the small, private Christian school above Sunset Cliffs and members and supporters of the LGBTQ+ community.

Student Host Group Forced to Show Film at Much Smaller Venue

By Charis Johnston / LomaBeat.com / April 1, 2024

Voices of Love (VOL), a Point Loma Nazarene University student group that provides community for LGBTQIA+ students, had been told by their faculty and staff advisors that they followed the guidelines to host an all-campus showing of the film “1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture,” which discusses an alleged mistranslation responsible for the Christian condemnation of homosexuality.

Despite the event initially being approved by Jake Gilbertson, dean of students and faculty advisor to VOL, it was canceled by Mary Paul, vice president of PLNU’s Office of Student Life and Formation (SLAF) and Gilbertson, on April 1.

By M.G. Perez / KPBS / April 17, 2023

Current students, alumni and allies rallied outside Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) on Friday, April 14, protesting harassment and discrimination of LGBTQ people in schools.

The rally outside PLNU came on the national Day of Silence coordinated by the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). The group also rallied for the support of two PLNU faculty members dismissed earlier this spring.

By Ken Stone / Times of San Diego / April 6, 2023

A Point Loma Nazarene University dean was fired three weeks ago, allegedly for siding with a colleague who lost her job at the church-affiliated school for backing LGBTQ rights.

The dean, Mark Maddix, has hired San Diego attorney Josh Gruenberg to deal with the school. According to Lauren Cazares, founder of Loma LGBTQIA, PLNU Provost Kerry Fulcher fired Maddix, dean of the School of Theology and Christian Ministry.

by Ernie McCray

“Gay Black men
are not ‘real’ men”
I heard a brother say
and all I know about him
is he’s ensnared in naivete
because some of the “realist” people I know
happened to be gay,
as there’s nothing
more “real”
than Langston Hughes’ poetry
in opposition
to the injustice and oppression
of Africans trapped in America,