Dublin Core
Title
Press Conference Reported in Next Day’s San Francisco Examiner
Description
San Francisco Examiner, January 3, 1965, page 4.
Source
Repository: San Francisco Public Library
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
Uproar Over Dance
Seven Protestant ministers accused San Francisco police yesterday of "deliberate harassment" in their breaking up of a Friday night fund raising ball for the benefit of homosexuals.
"We will support our attorneys in all they want to do about this situation," said the Rev. Ted McIlvenna, spokesman for the Council for Religion and the Homosexual, the ministerial committee which sponsored the "Mardi Gras" ball at California Hall.
The attorneys—Herbert Donaldson, 37, Evander Smith, 42, and Elliot Leighton, 34—said they will file false arrest suits. They were hauled away to Northern Station after protesting what they termed an "invasion" by plainclothes police into a private ball. The charge against each attorney was interfering with an office.
Police also arrested Nancy A. May, 28, the ballroom ticket taker; John P. Borset, 35, of 1370 Pine St. a window dresser for a downtown department store; and Conrad A. Osterreich, 28, office manager for a Los Angeles insurance firm.
Miss May was charged with obstructing officers and Borset and Osterreich were charged with lewd conduct on the dance floor after an official warning against public intimacies.
As for other guests, many males were in eye-dazzling evening gowns, and a policeman was heard to estimate that "out of 100 women, half were the genuine article."
Yesterday, the seven ministers called in reporters to explain the aims and purposes of the Council for Religion and the Homosexual and to protest what they called "bad faith" on the part of police who parked their patrol cars at the ballroom entrance and photographed the guests as they arrived.
Seven Protestant ministers accused San Francisco police yesterday of "deliberate harassment" in their breaking up of a Friday night fund raising ball for the benefit of homosexuals.
"We will support our attorneys in all they want to do about this situation," said the Rev. Ted McIlvenna, spokesman for the Council for Religion and the Homosexual, the ministerial committee which sponsored the "Mardi Gras" ball at California Hall.
The attorneys—Herbert Donaldson, 37, Evander Smith, 42, and Elliot Leighton, 34—said they will file false arrest suits. They were hauled away to Northern Station after protesting what they termed an "invasion" by plainclothes police into a private ball. The charge against each attorney was interfering with an office.
Police also arrested Nancy A. May, 28, the ballroom ticket taker; John P. Borset, 35, of 1370 Pine St. a window dresser for a downtown department store; and Conrad A. Osterreich, 28, office manager for a Los Angeles insurance firm.
Miss May was charged with obstructing officers and Borset and Osterreich were charged with lewd conduct on the dance floor after an official warning against public intimacies.
As for other guests, many males were in eye-dazzling evening gowns, and a policeman was heard to estimate that "out of 100 women, half were the genuine article."
Yesterday, the seven ministers called in reporters to explain the aims and purposes of the Council for Religion and the Homosexual and to protest what they called "bad faith" on the part of police who parked their patrol cars at the ballroom entrance and photographed the guests as they arrived.