A liberal night of comedy

Night filled with laughs, politics and personal messages

Tom Ammiano, an openly gay politician and comic, joined ecstatic gay rights supporters at CSUS Oct.15 in expressing gratitude to Gov. Gray Davis for signing bill AB 222, the Dignity for All Students Act.

The bill was written to make public high schools and colleges safer for gay and lesbian students by prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

“Public schools are now for all kids,” Ammiano claimed.

Bill AB 222 also ensures that the employment of teachers and other school employees are free from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Ammiano recalled his experience of being a gay Italian-American Roman Catholic.

Born in Newark, NJ, where “toxic waste was fast food” and “queer kids were segregated,” Ammiano moved to San Francisco in 1962.

“One of the magic things that happened to me in San Francisco was connecting with other gay men, not only because I was terribly ‘horny,’ but to actually make friends, to actually have support. We deserve it,” he said.

However, he had to face the brutal reality that homosexuals were still labeled, isolated and ridiculed in society.

“The frustration to me was name calling on playground. I was called ‘fag,’ so I took a break in Vietnam for two years during wartime. But there was a lot more denial over there,” he recalled.

As the San Francisco Board of Supervisors president and recent write-in candidate for the city’s mayor, Ammiano has long been active in the gay rights movement.

“Visibility is a very strong weapon. The more we are out of the closet, the better off we are,” he emphasized. “Since the ’40s up to today, we have made quite an advancement. We also have to be careful about not losing what we have. It’s still a long way to go.”

As a former teacher and the current president of the San Francisco School Board, Ammiano said in the past the most liberal thing people would say is ‘my hairdresser is gay’ but never a teacher.

Being one of eight openly gay elected to school boards around the country; Ammiano will stay in the front-line along with other advocates to keep fighting for gay rights.

He encouraged other homosexuals to exercise their different sensibility as part of queer identity and cultural identity.

“There is no need to runaway from that ,” he insisted.

He commented on another bill vetoed by Gov. Gray Davis that approves homosexual marriage.

“Personally I don’t see marriage as a terminology, as a dictionary definition. I see marriage as a concept, a commitment between two people. It’s gender free and orientation free,” Ammiano said.

But he still offered hopes about the vetoed bill, stating “we’ll win the war because more and more people will be educated as to who we are.”

If standing up as a politician takes courage, so does being an openly gay comic on stage. Ammiano has been a stand-up comic since 1980 and won several national awards.

He peppered his presentation with humor. “I’m openly gay, and politics could be affected because if I ever ran for President, I can also serve as my First Lady,” he cracked.