In 1983, when I was a young reporter just starting out at the San Francisco Bay Guardian, then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein signed a law strictly limiting the possession of handguns in the city.

A self-described Marxist-Leninist group called the White Panthers, whose members argued that the left should be well armed, immediately launched an effort to recall the mayor.

It would have been nothing, just a fringe movement, if Feinstein hadn’t done two other things that same month: She vetoed a bill by the late Sup. Harry Britt that would have extended city benefits to domestic partners, and she vetoed a resolution by then-Sup Nancy Walker proclaiming “reproductive rights day” in San Francisco. She said, as she often said later when it came to LGBTQ rights, that the domestic partners bill was too m

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