Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence - Inception

Inception

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence made their first appearance on Castro Street in San Francisco in 1979. Their approach and appearance was not new or extraordinary for the place or time. Starting in the 1960s, the Castro District began transitioning from a working class Irish Catholic district going through significant economic decline. A gay bar opened on Market Street and gradually, gay men began to migrate to the neighborhood. By 1977, between 100,000 and 200,000 had moved to San Francisco from all over the United States, changing the political and cultural profile of the city. The migration created a gay community in the city with enough political clout to elect a representative to city government, Harvey Milk.

Two theater troupes, The Cockettes and the Angels of Light, formed in San Francisco in the late 1960s and focused their entertainment on mocking popular culture through drag, embracing drugs, and free sex in the counterculture of the 1960s. The Cockettes performed regularly at the Palace Theater in the city's North Beach district as part of the late-night "Nocturnal Emissions" series and developed a strong following that would also dress in drag and ascribe to recreational drug use at their shows. One of their more high profile performances was staging a parody performance of the wedding of Tricia Nixon—President Nixon's daughter—and Edward F. Cox, completely in drag and coinciding with the actual event in 1971. Director John Waters called the Cockettes "hippie acid freak drag queens", whose first non-San Francisco appearance was at a New York City show with an audience full of celebrities who reacted with complete confusion to the performance. With their rising success came philosophical differences with The Angels of Light who broke off to present free shows, but who similarly employed drag and theater to satirize issues of gender and morality. The Angels of Light first appeared in a mock nativity scene at Grace Cathedral's Christmas Eve midnight mass in 1970. Both groups employed a sense of high camp: outrageous scenes and sets, fantastic costumes, movie references and bad puns, and intentionally bad acting combined with deliberately bad drag, which diverted from previous female impersonators whose mark of quality was realism.

The Castro was also known for the outrageous characters who were 1970s mainstays, such as Jesus Christ Satan and The Cosmic Lady, who endeared local residents with their unique perspectives, particularly during street events such as the Castro Street Fair and Halloween in the Castro. On Easter weekend 1979, three men dressed as nuns with habits they had procured from a convent in Iowa under the guise that they were going to stage a presentation of The Sound of Music, made their appearance on Castro Street. They followed with appearances at a nude beach, a softball game and the annual Castro Street Fair.

At the same time, religious participation in politics appeared in the late 1970s with the activism of Anita Bryant, and Jerry Falwell's establishment of the Moral Majority. The Castro District had been publicized nationally as a major gay neighborhood and was targeted by several dozen church members who took weekly trips to preach to the residents about the immorality of homosexuality. In August 1980, a dozen men dressed in 14th century Belgian nun's robes and habits, and according to one participant using the name Sister Missionary Position, "a teensy bit of make-up so as not to be dowdy on a Friday night", met the proselytizers where a chase ensued and attracted an audience of gay supporters who heckled the preachers until they left.

In October 1980, the dozen or so erstwhile nuns held their first fundraiser, a bingo game and Salsa dance that was well-attended in large part because of the write-up in The San Francisco Chronicle by Herb Caen the same day, who printed their organization name, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The benefit was for San Francisco's Metropolitan Community Church Cuban Refugee Program, and it netted $1,500 ($3,906 in 2009). The Sisters began making regular appearances at Castro events that focused on sexual tolerance or provided a showcase for drag. They also developed a mission statement:

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is a leading-edge Order of queer nuns. Since our first appearance in San Francisco on Easter Sunday, 1979, the Sisters have devoted ourselves to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment. We believe all people have a right to express their unique joy and beauty and we use humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that chain the human spirit.