Pink triangle needs volunteers

For the last 12 years, people who glanced up at Twin Peaks during Pride weekend may have noticed a large pink triangle installation on the hillside. The triangle is the work of Patrick Carney and the Friends of the Pink Triangle, and it's more than just decoration.

The triangle originates from the badge that more than 50,000 gay prisoners were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps. Now, Carney and the Friends of the Pink Triangle are ensuring that the LGBT community remembers what came before.

"People who forget history are doomed to repeat it," Carney said. That's why in 1996, Carney and two friends, Tom Tremblay and Michael Brown, decided to create a visible reminder over Pride weekend.

"Me and [Tom] were having lunch on Market Street. We looked up at the hill, wondering what to do for Pride, and thought, there's a big blank canvas there," Carney said.

That weekend, Carney and about 15 people built a large pink triangle on Twin Peaks. Though the project was, as Carney calls it, "renegade" that first year, it has since become a fixture of the Pride celebrations, drawing support from city officials and speakers from all over the world.

Once a small symbol erected by 15 people, the triangle now requires 80 people to put it together. Carney and his sister, Colleen Hodgkins, lay down the outline each year. Then the volunteers fill it in with 175 pink tarps and thousands of stakes anchoring them to the hillside.

Carney has kept up the tradition every year, he said, "to make sure it doesn't happen again. Because it is happening again. It's happening in Iran, among other places," he said, referring to countries that are rabidly anti-gay.

Consensual gay sex has been punishable by death in Iran since the Ayatollah took power in 1979, and over 4,000 gay men and women have been killed under this law. One of the speakers at this year's pink triangle installation ceremony will be Arsham Parsi, the executive director of the IRanian Queer Organization, who was forced to flee Iran in 2005 after performing underground activism for the LGBT community there.

Volunteers are needed on Friday, June 27, from 1 to 5 p.m. to help create the outline; on Saturday, June 28, from 7 to 10 a.m. to create the actual triangle; and on Sunday, June 29, from 4 to 8 p.m. to disassemble the triangle.

Though he was concerned that the triangle would be less visible given ongoing high-rise construction in downtown San Francisco, Carney said that last year he and friends went to the East Bay to see for themselves and the triangle was still visible.

The dedication ceremony will take place Saturday, June 28 at 10:30 a.m. In addition to Parsi, Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty have confirmed their attendance. The Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band will perform and the triangle will be christened with pink champagne.

Carney noted that sponsors of this year's event include the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee Inc., the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and the Castro Lions Club.

Volunteers are provided with coffee, water, and a pink triangle T-shirt. Interested people should meet in the Twin Peaks vista point/overlook parking lot, and bring a hammer if you have one. For more information and detailed directions, visit http://www.thepinktriangle.com.