Religion
Oakland, like some other cities, requires right-to-life protesters to keep a certain distance from women entering or leaving abortion clinics. But clinic escorts–those who accompany women past the sidewalk protesters–face no such restriction. A lawsuit has pushed the issue into federal court.
At a commemorative interfaith service in Oakland, supporters of gay marriage gathered to reflect on the year since state voters approved the ballot initiative restricting marriage in California to man-woman couples.
A year ago today, California voters approved Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment that bars same-sex marriages in the state. Maine voters yesterday approved a similar ban, leaving five states–Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire–in which gay couples may legally wed. This interactive map (scroll over to get more information on each state), designed and reported by Oakland North’s Shannon Service and Tasneem Raja, shows the current state-by-state array of marriage and civil union law around the United States.
Dutiful sons and daughters keep alive the Mexican tradition of honoring the dead with flowers, food and drink.
At the Golden Gate Public Library on Tuesday night, a diverse group of young dancers celebrated Diwali, the Festival of Lights, continuing a tradition that is thousands of years old .
At the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts in downtown Oakland, Portsha Jefferson and the Rara Tou Limen Haitian Folkloric Ensemble use dance and performance to educate the Bay Area about Haitian culture. The ensemble is organizing a fundraiser this Wednesday, October 21, at San Francisco’s Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts.
In the last three weeks, seven new families have finally won the right to move to Oakland. The most recent family arrived October 7, and like the others, was picked up at San Francisco International Airport after a 16-hour flight, taken to a sparsely furnished apartment on 19th street in East Oakland, and given a week’s expense money. With this final trip up I-80 and across the Bay Bridge, a journey that began in the depths of the jungles of…
Eight choirs. One night. Fifteen thousand fans. Watch the singers of Oakland’s Genesis Worship Center as they take the stage in the “Best Choir in America” competition.
In early September, a small memorial formed at the intersection of 54th and Gaskill Streets in North Oakland, marking the site where bullets cut short the life of Desiree Davis. On Saturday, that subtle shrine turned into a soaring tribute to the 17-year-old’s life at a street fair held by members of Humanity Baptist Church. Voices lifted from a stage just across the street, filling the air with songs of hope, and speakers made impassioned calls for an end to street…