March 7, 1993

IS IT A NATIONAL AGENDA?

by Kim Eckart
The Idaho Statesman

Reprinted without permission

     The filing of an anti-gay initiative in Idaho puts
the state in the forefront of a string of campaigns
across the nation to limit the rights of homosexuals.
     Anti-gay-rights activists deny that the effort are
linked, a charge frequently made by their opponents.
     "These are all spontaneous local efforts," Lon
Mabon, chairman of the U.S. Citizens Alliance, said
Saturday.  "I think you will see every state, through the
initiative process, consider anti-special-rights
legislation."
     Robert Shaffer, a board member of Idaho for Human
Dignity--a Boise-based group that formed to oppose the
Idaho Citizens Alliance movement--said the growing number
of statewide efforts clearly shows a national connection.
     "It's a covert operation, and gays and lesbians are
pawns in a broader conservative agenda," Shaffer said.
     In the wake of last fall's approval of Colorado's
Amendment 2--a statewide measure limiting gay rights--a
similar initiative was filed in Florida in January.
     The second statewide initiative since November's
elections was filed in Idaho last week, and groups in at
least eight other states have begun similar efforts at
the states have begun similar efforts at the state or
city levels.
     The legislative goals range from fighting legal
protections based on sexual orientation to trying to
outlaw domestic partnership arrangements, according to
the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a group which
monitors such efforts.
     Mabon said his group has been contacted by those
working in most of the other states.  But he says the
U.S. Citizens Alliance plans to work in only three--
Idaho, Washington and Oregon.
     Mabon, as chairman of the Oregon Citizens Alliance,
helped author that group's controversial Measure 9, which
would have required the state to define homosexuality as
"abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse."  The amendment
was defeated last November.
     Now, however, the Oregon Citizens Alliance is
sponsoring an initiative on the ballot in eight counties
and 25 cities that would prevent gays from attaining
minority status.  The city of Cornelius will hold the
first vote on the measure June 29, Mabon said.
     At least 12 Oregon counties are expected to take up
the initiative in the 1994 primary, he added.
     Elsewhere around the country, organizations like the
Anaheim, Calif-based Traditional Values Coalition,
florida's American Family Association and Citizens alert
of Columbia, Mo., have sponsored initiatives at either
the state or municipal level to curb gay rights.
     Although California state law protects against
discrimination based on sexual orientation, the
Traditional Values Coalition aims to eliminate laws that
recognize homosexual domestic partnership on an equal
footing with heterosexual marriages in places where it is
currently legal, in cities like San Francisco and North
Hollywood.
     Calls to the group were not returned Friday and
Saturday.
     But gay activists argue that the assorted state
movements are linked.  They frequently tie them to the
Christian Coalition, a national organization which gave
at least $20,000 to the Oregon Measure 9 campaign last
year.
     The group's national chairman, Ralph Reed
acknowledges that gift.  But he says the group gave no
money to the campaign behind Colorado's Amendment 2.
     Will Perkins, head of Colorado for Family Values,
the group that authored Amendment 2, said his group is
not encouraging other efforts but will support them.  "We
act as a resource for other states or cities who are
interested in doing something like we did," he said.
"But they would be acting on their own."
     The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has
scheduled a conference next weekend in Denver to develop
strategies against anti-gay initiatives.