Pelosi Urged to Condemn Open-Air SF Sex Fair

(CNSNews.com) - Leaders from three pro-family groups Wednesday called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to denounce the Folsom Street Fair - which is called "the world's largest leather event" and is held each September in San Francisco - as a "grotesque affair" that violates laws prohibiting public nudity and child abuse.

"Because you frequently extol San Francisco's values to the rest of America, we are compelled to call your attention to what actually takes place" at the event, wrote Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, in a letter he hand-delivered to Pelosi's office on Capitol Hill.

"I was in San Francisco with a videographer on Sunday, September 30, and verified but a small segment of the most immoral and outrageous sexual behavior that ever disgraced the streets of any American city," continued LaBarbera, whose group describes itself as "devoted exclusively to exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda."

To support his perspective on the matter, LaBarbera released a six-minute DVD entitled "Tolerance Gone Wild in San Francisco" to members of the press during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

The disc contained a number of sex-related visuals, including:

Large numbers of men walking on public streets either fully or partially naked;
Groups of men engaging in sex acts on the street as crowds walked by and snapped pictures and police officers merely watched;
Theatrical sadomasochistic whippings and floggings - drawing blood and turning the willing "victim's" skin bright red;
Flaunting of female nudity and real or simulated sexual acts;
"Master-slave relationships" in which a man or woman "walked" a subservient "slave" with a collar and chain;
Anti-Christian imagery in the form of the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" - men dressed in drag mocking Catholic nuns - greeting incoming attendees at Folsom; and
Young children with their parents witnessing the street scene.

Once LaBarbera had shown the DVD to those at the news conference, Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues with the conservative group Concerned Women for America, responded by saying that "during San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair, total nudity and the most unimaginable and vile acts of debauchery are commonplace."

"Are these the values we want spread across America?" Barber asked. "To our children?"

Also calling on Pelosi to condemn the sadomasochism fair was Grace Harley of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), an African-American and self-described "former transgender person" who said she was "holding back tears" after seeing video from the DVD of an African-American woman whose mouth was bridled like a horse.

"My heart breaks for all of these people," added Harley, who attributed her change of life orientation to "the power of Jesus Christ."

In his letter to Pelosi, LaBarbera concluded by asking: "After viewing what undeniably took place at a public, outdoor event in your congressional district ... we hope you will publicly disavow such conduct.

"As speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives - for all Americans - you have a national responsibility to condemn these public perversions and use your great influence to stop them from happening in the future in San Francisco," he stated.

Respect

As Cybercast News Service previously reported, this year's festival first drew attention - and criticism - on Sept. 25 over a promotional image that portrayed Christ and his disciples as half-naked homosexual sadomasochists.

Within 24 hours, Miller Brewing Company asked to have its logo removed from the advertisement even though the event organizer said there was no intention "to be particularly pro-religion or anti-religion with this poster; the image is intended only to be reminiscent" of Leonardo Da Vinci's painting "The Last Supper."

On Sept. 28, Pelosi was asked by Cybercast News Service during a Capitol Hill press conference about a comment her spokesman made to the Bay Area Reporter that the advertisement "would not harm Christianity."

"I'm a big believer in the First Amendment," she replied, "and therefore, as I said in my statement, I do not believe that Christianity has been harmed by the Folsom Street Fair advertising."

Telephone calls seeking response from the House speaker to Wednesday's letter and news conference were not returned by press time. However, LaBarbera included remarks Pelosi made during an Oct. 6 speech to the homosexual advocacy group Human Rights Campaign in his DVD.

"People always say it is easy for me ... to be out front on these issues because San Francisco is so tolerant," Pelosi said then. "Tolerant? It's not about tolerance. It's about respect. It's about the respect we have for each other."

"Respect?" LaBarbera responded during the news conference. "What about respect for our laws regarding public nudity and child abuse? What about respect for people of faith who saw their Lord blasphemed by Folsom organizers working with the grotesquely anti-Christian Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence?

"It's time for San Francisco's cover-up" of the Folsom Street Fair to end, he added. "Radical sexual activists, pandering politicians and complicit media can no longer disguise and misrepresent reality. The truth is out."

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