Equality California recognized the Bay Area Reporter for its 50 years of serving the LGBTQ community at its San Francisco Equality Awards September 10 at the California Academy of Sciences. B.A.R. news editor Cynthia Laird noted that while the paper and the statewide LGBTQ rights organization "haven't always seen things with the same lens, at the end of the day we want the same thing — equality for all." B.A.R. publisher Michael Yamashita, left, recounted the paper's history: "From the beginning, the B.A.R. was concerned with politics, in fact publishing a newspaper for the LGBTQ community was a political act. Our first political columnist Harvey Milk had the vision to lead us to pursue political power for ourselves." EQCA also honored state Attorney General Rob Bonta, who told the audience that he will continue fighting for the LGBTQ community. The program also paid tribute to outgoing EQCA Executive Director Rick Zbur, who's running for a state Assembly seat in Southern California, and welcomed Executive Director-designate Tony Hoang.
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