“Why is she so angry?,” more than a few people at last Friday night’s Spirit of Stonewall Rally wanted to know. “Who is this angry woman shouting on stage and why is she evoking images of ‘hellfire and brimstone?’”

The woman in question was the former executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lorri L. Jean — and she was truly ablaze.

“In a country that is supposed to be the freest on earth, we still do not have anything even approaching equality, freedom and justice,” Jean’s voice roared over several hundred patrons assembled at Balboa Park’s Organ Pavilion. “We are still having to fight for the most basic freedom that every single one of our straight brothers and sisters take for granted. That’s wrong and I’m mad as hell about it!”

“My life is pretty decent; what is she going on about?” questioned one gay, male attendee in his 40s.

No doubt, to the average citizen of San Diego’s GLBT community — where last month’s news that the Supreme Court had struck down existing anti-gay sodomy laws was barely cause for sunbathers at Black’s Beach to lift their lethargic eyelids — Jean seemed an anomaly, if not a vague sort of threat.

However, if we have anything to be fired up about, mad at or even threatened by, it is the fact that we are so close to full equality we can actually smell it on the burner, sizzling like Canadian bacon — yet we are just complacent enough to let it elude us for another 50 to 100 years.

Things seem pretty cozy to San Diegans acclimated to Gov. Gray Davis’ incremental approach to expanding GLBT rights, and social attitudes towards gays and lesbians seem to be improving. At the rally, our own amiable Republican mayor joked with Councilmember Toni Atkins about being the subject of a “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” makeover, while dapper, albeit straight, Republican Councilmember Scott Peters planted a kiss on the cheek of smitten rally emcee Russell Roybal.

So why bring the crowd down with a radical speech more befitting of the gay rights movement of the ’70s or a decade-old ACT-UP demonstration?

Because as far as we’ve come, we still do not have equal benefits, protections or the right to marry. We have organized, antigay throngs of voters in this country that the Republican Party — no matter how moderate some of its individual members claim to be — is still beholden to in its entirety. And we have pending federal legislation that would ban same-sex marriage, of which President Bush said July 30: “I believe we ought to codify that one way or the other and we have [White House] lawyers looking at the best way to do that.”

“Mark my words,” Jean told the crowd, “history will judge harshly those foes who oppose our freedom, just as it will those friends who lacked the courage and the character to do what is right — full equality and nothing less.”

As Jean’s speech continued, award honorees and invited guests, including Scott Peters — who voted to extend the Boy Scouts discriminatory lease in Balboa Park — continued to clap along with those seated onstage (with the exception of openly lesbian District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who, in all fairness, is perhaps not as big a clapper as she is a Republican.)

“We must stop being apologists for allies who refuse to promote our full equality,” added Jean, as Peters clapped his approval. “If we fail to stand up for true justice, others will think that they don’t have to either.

“To these enemies and the elected leaders who claim to be our friends, … I say this: If we do not have the same rights, then we do not have equal rights — and we’re not going away until we do.”

Though many, prior to the Boy Scouts’ vote, believed Peters to have expressed a tacit opposition to the lease renewal — based on the Boy Scouts’ national policy of barring gay members and leaders — Peters ultimately voted to renew the lease, as tears filled the eyes of his openly lesbian colleague, Councilmember Atkins (who he sat next to at last weekend’s rally).

“Every candidate who competed for the endorsement of the Democratic Club in my race said that they would not vote to kick the Boy Scouts out of Balboa Park,” Peters told the Gay and Lesbian Times this week. “I don’t feel that there was any intent to deceive about that.”

Asked about the apparent contradiction of his clapping when he would appear to be one of the professed allies who doesn’t support full equality for our community, Peters said, “I understand the community’s frustration. I’ve certainly tried as best I can to keep communication open and I understand that that’s a hurt.

“At the same time,” he continued. “I think I’ve been really supportive on issues that are important to the [GLBT] community — and not just on issues that come up because of AIDS or sexual orientation, but the general issues that are important to everyone” (Peters, along with the full city council, voted in July to add an amendment to the city’s Human Dignity Ordinance, protecting transgender citizens from discrimination).

“It’s more incremental than anyone in the community would like,” Peters said of the movement towards full equality for GLBT citizens. “I think there’s progress, but I think it’s coming too slow for people.”

Asked if his vote on the Scouts’ lease would be different today, he said that his answer would only be “speculation.”

Perhaps the time was just not right for Peters to vote against the discriminatory Scouts lease back in December of 2001, without the support of the council’s current, progressive majority.

“I say that if we had listened to those who said that it wasn’t the right time to demand full equality or that it couldn’t be done, we would never be where we are today,” Jean shouted at the rally. “Freedom can never come too soon…. This is not a radical message, this is the only acceptable message.”

We agree with Lorri Jean. Though the time may never be quite right for everyone, there is a critical lack of urgency and assertiveness in our movement that could play against our current victories.

We urge citizens to write Gov. Davis and let him know that our freedom can never come too soon — and that signing AB 205 (domestic partner rights) and AB 196 (transgender protections) are as conscionable actions as when former Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation repealing laws that criminalized gay sex in California (back in 1975, when Davis was his chief of staff).

Davis has actively sought GLBT community support to help him win his fight against the looming recall; let’s politely, yet resolutely, demand a few final acts of justice and good will from him.

“It’s good to have hellfire and brimstone,” Jean told San Diegans last weekend, “to stand up for what is right.”

Contact Gov. Davis by phoning (619) 525-4641 (San Diego) or (916) 445-2841 (Sacramento). He can also be reached by mail, C/O the State Capital Building, Sacramento, CA, 95814, or via e-mail at governor@governor.ca.gov.