Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 10:57:03 -0700
From: Robert Shaffer <rshaffer@hpbs114.boi.hp.com>
Subject: (fwd) Idaho Anti-Gay Drive: NGLTF Plans Fight

The following article appeared in the Jan. 11, 1994
Idaho Statesman newspaper and is reproduced without
permission:

NATIONAL GROUP PLANS TO FIGHT
ANTI-GAY PROPOSAL IN IDAHO

States News Service

WASHINGTON -- Idaho's anti-gay initiative attracted
national attention Monday when a gay rights group
announced its plan to fight the ballot proposal along
with eight others across the country.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said attempts
to legally deny homosexuals protection as a minority
group are not just local battles but reflect a national
effort by right-wing political groups to gain power.

Other states have initiative proposals in the works that
include Arizona, Maine, Florida and Oregon.

Task Force spokesman David Smith said the multi-state effort
is no accident.

Groups such as the Christian Coalition and the Traditional
Values Coalition are capitalizing on the 1992 legislative
successes in Colorado and Oregon he said.

"This is an organizing principle for a wider agenda," Smith
said.  The conservative Christian movement is using
homosexuals as an easy target for their political gain,
feeding off a general ignorance about homosexuality,
Smith said.

But the particular cooperation among the citizens'
alliances in Oregon, Washington and Idaho have less to do
with the national coalitions than one man, Lon Mabon,
the head of the Oregon Citizens Alliance, according to
participants in the fight over the initiative in Idaho.

Mabon trained Idaho's lead organizer for the initiative,
Kelly Walton, who worked on Oregon's mostly successful
local and state measures before focusing on Idaho.
Walton, who was in Olympia, Wash., at a conference for
leaders of the OCA, ICA and Citizens Alliance of
Washington, was not available for comment.

The Idaho initiative, if voters pass it in November, would
create a statute prohibiting government acceptance of
homosexuality in the schools and in government-funded
programs, and ban legal recognition of same-sex marriages.

The alliance needs to submit 32,061 signatures by July 8
to get the initiative on the November ballot.

If passed, it still needs the governor's signature before
it became law.

Opponents of the initiative said the two likely candidates
for governor, Democrat and current Attorney General Larry
EchoHawk and Republican Phil Batt -- both have publicly
opposed the initiative.

In Washington, all the Idaho representatives have said they
oppose the measure, except Sen. Larry Craig, who has refused
to take a stand.

"It is not fashionable to support the dang thing," said
Jill Kuraitis, a spokesman for the coalition of opponents
working on the "Don't Sign On" campaign.  "I think we have
a slight edge to beat it."

-  30 --

=============
Speaking for myself.  Standard disclaimers.

rshaffer@hpbs114.boi.hp.com