Destination: Palm Springs
By Troy Petenbrink
on
May 7, 2012
In the heart of Southern California, Palm Springs is a top gay-friendly destination. This desert city offers LGBT travelers a wealth of outstanding activities and events throughout the year. More information about Palm Springs and a chance to win a 4 days/3 nights vacation (entries are due by June 30, 2012) are available at www.visitgaypalmsprings.com.
[Photo by Troy Petenbrink]
Bishop O'Dowd High School, a 75-year-old Catholic college-preparatory school in East Oakland, California, has adopted a new rainbow logo after the Diocese of Oakland forced it to remove LGBTQ Pride flags from classrooms before the start of the school year.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland asked O'Dowd administrators last winter to remove the school's rainbow and transgender Pride flags, an employee told The Oaklandside. The flags were taken down on June 1, 2026 without any formal communication to students or families, although staff marked their removal with a ceremony, according to the employee. At least one of the flags had hung in a classroom for more than 30 years.
Long Beach police arrested a man accused of making violent threats in the comments of a social media post promoting the Big Gay Flotilla, an annual informal gay beach party and meet-up where attendees bring pool floats and water gear to swim, sunbathe, and socialize.
The man was among several people who commented on an event flyer posted to the Instagram account of Long Beach Classic, a local news website. The AI-generated flyer promoted the "Big Gay Float Party in Long Beach," scheduled for August 8 at Horny Corner in Belmont Shore, and depicted gay men in swimming trunks, including one wearing a rainbow-colored thong and walking into the water.
Two gay bars in San Francisco's Castro district say they have paused their use of a controversial ID-scanning system that photographs patrons following backlash from the local LGBTQ community.
In June, local news outlet Gazetteer reported that at least three LGBTQ bars -- The Mix, Badlands, and Toad Hall -- were using PatronScan Guard+, an ID-scanning system that photographs patrons and stores their images in a database.
The database contains a patron's zip code, birth date, gender, ID expiration date, and photograph. Patronscan says the photograph serves only as a time-stamped record of the patron's appearance and is not used for facial recognition or biometric identification.
