Gay Cisg San Diego County - gay meetg plac California

Contents:

• GAY CISG SAN DIEGO COUNTY
• THE 5 BEST SAN DIEGO GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS SAN DIEGO
• CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR.

GAY CISG SAN DIEGO COUNTY

Hillcrt, Homosexualy, History. It might be the prow of a ship — a purple, flh-pk, and terratta ship, wh s name spelled out black letters on a bright yellow sign — sailg northeast, rryg s hold the seeds and history of Hillcrt’s life as San Diego’s gay district. The Brass Rail provid the ocsn for my own disvery of the gay muny Hillcrt, four years ago.

A iendly guy who gave me directns stck me a probably beg gay, but nothg else tipped me off. (This was before Gay Mart opened on the rner of Sixth and Universy.

THE 5 BEST SAN DIEGO GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS SAN DIEGO

I had jt rented a one-bedroom apartment wh another man — an olr, more mcular man — two blocks om the epicenter of San Diego’s gay district. We didn’t live Hillcrt long after we married — we found a seclud gut hoe Missn Hills that was more to our likg – but I often wonred how Hillcrt was chosen, if was chosen at all, as the center of gay life San Diego. The Augt 31, 1973, issue of the Pacific Coast Tim, a now funct lolly based magaze for gays and lbians, featur an terview wh “Ed om the Brass Rail.

Though he’s not gay, he has been owner or part-owner of numero gay bars and nsirs himself a iend to the gay muny.

They were not all gay. Then, how turned out to be gay, I don’t know. Bridget Wilson, a longtime gay activist and attorney, might see a nnectn.

CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR.

She tells me that “like most of San Diego, (the gay muny) is a product of World War II and the slightly pre-World War II aircraft dtry. San Francis had had s gay muny for years, had s Barbary Coast nce that had always gone on there, but this town, the gay muny was built by the ary. World War II was the largt nscriptn of forc the history of the untry, and those days, the ncept of tellg them you were gay to get out of the service was a ltle ls popular.

Whatever the ary’s effect, by the time Lou bought the Brass Rail 1957, was a gay bar, equented by lol, nonary gays.

By the ‘40s, had been renamed Bradley’s and was a rtrant by day and a gay lounge by night. “The gays would start to e at five-thirty. Bars were at the center of gay social life those days.

“When I me out, ” remembers Bridget, “the only plac you uld go and be gay were bars. The general public, and even a lot of gays, thk the vice was tough.