Single vote doesn't negate other work
In your October 12 editorial ("Alice club's strange award choice"), you criticized the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club for giving a Legislator of the Year Award to Supervisor Katy Tang as part of our Fall Awards ceremony, claiming that it was "strange" to do so after she made a vote with which your editorial staff disagrees. (As it happens, we made the decision to honor Tang with the award over a month before the vote in question.)
In May of this year, we signed on to a letter (along with the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club) opposing the anti-gay Pacific Justice Institute's involvement in this issue. And indeed, Tang has herself asked PJI to stop its interference and fear-mongering in her district. Yet, your editorial spuriously connected her vote to PJI's homophobia.
Alice is not a "single-issue" organization and we do not engage in slash and burn politics. Tang has been an unwavering straight ally throughout her career, and to suggest that her vote was somehow anti-gay is a gross mischaracterization. We do not impugn her motives simply because we may disagree.
We believe that a single vote does not negate the other important and laudable work that Tang has done this year. We stand by our award and applaud Tang's efforts to increase housing production and density, which is directly in line with our club's platform.
Eric Lukoff and Louise ("Lou") Fischer, Co-Chairs
Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club
San Francisco
Supes ignored voters
Last year, San Francisco voters approved Proposition 64 (legalization of recreational use of cannabis) by a 74 percent vote.
Now, nine supervisors are obstructing legalization by refusing a permit to a medical cannabis dispensary ["Anti-gay group sinks SF pot club," October 5].
This is like the kind of nonsense congressional Republicans pull: Cutting funding for Planned Parenthood to make abortions less available, because they have nowhere near the two-thirds vote needed to put an abortion ban into the Constitution.
The supervisors have ignored the voters. All voters who support decriminalization of cannabis should oppose the nine who voted no when they ask for your votes in future elections (including elections for the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee). By the way, five of those nine are leftists (Sandra Lee Fewer, Aaron Peskin, Norman Yee, Hillary Ronen, and Jane Kim). The supporters of those supervisors probably voted 90 percent for cannabis legalization.
The argument that "kids will get pot if we license dispensaries" is bogus. When I was in high school, cannabis possession was chargeable as a felony. The high school crowd still knew where to buy weed even in 1973.
Arlo Hale Smith
San Francisco