Unconventional Politics

MARK LENO Mark Leno has a way of reaching across the political divide and disarming not just conservatives but those on the far right who would seem predisposed to regard his views and identity with antipathy. Unconventional Politics San Francisco—Even here, in a qualify as a lobby. seem predisposed to regard his city accustomed to unconventional But there they were gathered in views and identity with antipathy. politics, Mark Leno is no the hotel’s Soma Room, its perimeter Because he carries his beliefs with conventional politician. adorned with hemp jackets and such deep conviction, but rarely Milwaukee boy, rabbinical school hemp dresses and hemp Christmas strident, they sense genuineness about dropout, San Francisco transplant, stockings, to applaud the senator’s him, whether the issue is same-sex printer by trade, the first openly gay determined efforts to legalize the marriage or his fight for single-payer male to ever serve in the California farming of hemp in California. His universal health care in California. State Senate. Not your run-of-the-mill legislative agenda may have been “I happen to be gay, I happen legislative bio, for sure. filled with far more weighty matters, to be Jewish, I happen to be a small But it’s not until he walks into the but there he stood before hemp’s forty business owner, I happen to be conference hall at the Holiday Inn in true believers. liberal. It’s all part of my identity. I’ve downtown San Francisco and starts Sen. Leno had somehow never run from who I am, and each working the room—in this case the managed to persuade two of the most piece is as important to my identity 18th annual convention of the Hemp conservative law enforcement officials as the other. I’d like to think even my Industry Association—that you begin in rural California, the sheriffs of critics respect that.” to appreciate just how refreshingly Kern and Kings Counties, to embrace His bio says Leno is sixty years different Leno is. hemp as the good seed of cannabis. old, born before Eisenhower even ran It’s safe to say that most The two lawmen had ended up for president, but from the front row, politicians don’t lie awake at night writing letters in support of the bill— he appears at least a decade younger. thinking of ways to make the hemp no easy feat for a politician from San A product of Milwaukee, Leno crowd happy. Unlike its cannabis Francisco. was shaped by a city more liberal than cousin, hemp isn’t grown anywhere in Mark Leno has a way of reaching one might expect. The nation’s beer the country, legally or illegally. The across the political divide and capital, Milwaukee was an immigrant men and women pushing the virtues disarming not just conservatives but town made famous by Schlitz and of hemp oil, seed and fiber hardly those on the far right who would Braves pitcher Warren Spahn and all those progressives who turned it into “People have different definitions was all this incense and aromatics America’s hub of the Socialist Party in of when they identify that day— in the air, music, the beat of drums, the first half of the 20th Century. They the day they declare themselves to very spirited. I was still in the process were hardly anarchists. Known as the themselves. Yes, there were lots of tears of coming out as a gay man. In the “Sewer Socialists,” they dedicated and pain and hard work that took place midst of all these hippies and activists, themselves to a platform that kept the before that kid found his footing. But there was a lot of flamboyance, sewer, water and electrical systems he could determine back then what he people in chiffon and purple and pink running, at all costs. wanted that footing to be.” costumes, sheets of fabric that blew Leno grew up as the middle child Leno chose to attend the in the wind. They were embracing and only son of Manny and Esther University of Colorado at Boulder— themselves. Leno. Both sides of the family were for no greater reason than it was “It was the first time I had seen Russian Jews who came to America far from Milwaukee and a couple such a public declaration in my life. between 1910 and 1916. Manny ran of friends were going there. The It was very liberating, of course, but an office machinery business; Esther I hadn’t yet come out to the people was a stay-at-home mom. Like so I was traveling with, so I had to keep many suburban Jews of the 1950s and this recognition, this pride, to myself.” 60s, they attended a Reform Temple The following spring, on a trip and didn’t keep a Kosher home. to Los Angeles, Leno had his first Yiddish was the language of secrets. relationship. “Then the truth started “I had a great childhood, a lot of to unfold with family members, close positive memories. In high school, friends, other relatives, other friends. I was a well socialized kid who ran Yes, my coming out is a California for office every year and somehow story. It is woven into California. It won, president of my freshman class, happened in California.” treasurer of the student council in After a year in Boulder, he the 10th grade, president of the junior returned to Milwaukee and enrolled class and president of the student at the University of Wisconsin. He council my senior year.” soon found himself impatient with his Even before he graduated from studies, smitten with Thoreau and a high school in 1969, Leno had desire to experience life off-the-beaten more than an inkling of his sexual track. His search for his own Walden orientation. In his small sphere, he Pond turned up a small island in had a difficult time pointing to an the Caribbean—the most southern example of a gay man, at least one of the Grenadine Islands, a place who was out of the closet or depicted called Bequia. He joined the crew of as something other than a caricature. a charter boat company, learned how At 18, despite feeling isolated and to raise an anchor, set sails, cook and different, he took his first steps to prolonging of the Vietnam War clean. come out. He looks back with awe at had unleashed a fury of activism on It was there on the island that he the courage of that kid, seeing himself college campuses across the country, came to the realization that returning in the third-person. and Boulder was no exception. Leno to college didn’t necessarily mean “I marvel at it sometimes, that decided to apply for Conscientious returning to the U.S. He could such a young man could determine Objector status, and in November combine his love for travel and other with certainty, unequivocally, that 1969, he hopped into a VW van with cultures and still get a useful degree every message he was receiving from a handful of other schoolmates and by attending the American College faith leaders, political leaders, his headed west to San Francisco for a in Jerusalem. So he ventured to the parents, everybody, was completely massive anti-war rally. It was the first Middle East in January 1972, a time counter to what he believed and time he set eyes on the city. of particular turmoil, the ‘67 War still understood in his core. At 18, he “I remember crossing the Golden fresh and the Yom Kippur War just could say to himself. ‘No, I am right. Gate Bridge on a damp, foggy day ahead. They are wrong.’ and heading into the park. There “It was a fascinating time for me. I floated very much between the Israeli frayed since his coming out, shared father reacted terribly to my coming and Arab worlds. I got to see both with Leno an idea for a sign making out. It was more that he had no sides. I had a lot of Arab friends. But business. Leno found it intriguing and reference point, no experience with all that changed dramatically after war began doing research. He took out a gay people. And then there was his broke out again.” $15,000 loan, rented shop space and real worry about what I was going to Leno earned his psychology bought a flatbed press with hard type do with my life. So when I showed the degree in Jerusalem and became that could churn out large-lettered initiative to start my own business, it so fascinated with religion, his signs for local businesses. This was gave him enormous pride. He was a own Judaism in particular, that he a time, before computers, when small business owner, and now I was a committed to a five-year course of commercial signs were either hand small business owner, too.” Rabbinical studies at Hebrew Union lettered or silk screened in quantities. One day in 1980, a handsome College in New York—the first year in Budget Signs was thus born, young man named Douglas Jackson Jerusalem and the next four years in churning out signs for Bay Area walked into Leno’s shop to order signs New York. to promote a disco party marking “I was going to need a vocation, the opening of the Municipal Metro and I had this very keen spiritual line from Van Ness to Castro. Leno curiosity, so it made sense to me. But I printed the signs, went to the party went in with a question hanging over and ending up falling in love with me, a question I could not answer at Jackson.

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