Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 15:08:23 -0500 (CDT) From: Kevyn Jacobs To: "Kansas Queer News [KQN]" Subject: NT: LAWRENCE COMMISSION DENIES LESBIGAYS AWARENESS WEEK PROCLAMATION FROM THE NEWS-TELEGRAPH APRIL 14-27, 1995 ======================= PROCLAMATION DENIED by Lisa Marie Neff LAWRENCE KS-It is an action a city council, commission or board of aldermen typically performs as often as once a meeting and with unanimous consent. The action is the issuance of proclamation or resolution he items at the top of a meeting agenda that usually acknowledge a week of celebration, a commemorative date or an organization's campaign. Last month, Chris Hampton, of Lesbian, Bisexual and Gay Services of Kansas, went the Lawrence City Commission to ask elected officials to proclaim April 2-8 as LesBiGay Awareness Week. The week-long celebration began at the University of Kansas with a series of lectures from activists and celebrities in the community and culminated with a parade, festival and prom. The group, based at the University of Kansas, has sponsored the Pride parade, festival and picnic for several years and in the past received proclamations from the city commission. This time around, Hampton said, the pre-election commission refused the request. Jolene F. Anderson, then Lawrence mayor, supported issuing the proclamation, but the commissioners, without reading the statement, felt it was too controversial, especially since the commission is considering amending the city's Human Rights ordinance to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual-orientation. Ironically, if the amendment to the Human Rights ordinance being promoted by Simply Equal were in place and protecting Lesbians and Gays against discrimination in Lawrence, the proclamation's supporters might have recourse against city officials. For example, the Ontario Human Rights Commission in Canada recently fined Hamilton Mayor Bob Morrow for refusing to issue a Lesbian and Gay pride proclamation in 1991. Morrow personally must pay a $5,000 fine. After learning that commissioners did not intend to issue the proclamation, Hampton attended a commission meeting March 21 to point out that "not everything in Lawrence related to sexual orientation has to do with the "Human Rights ordinance" and to invite city officials to Awareness Week events. ========================================================== Permission granted by the News-Telegraph for distribution to the KQN email list (KQN@casti.com), and archiving in the Queer Resources Directory (QRD) on the Internet (http://www.qrd.org/QRD). For News-Telegraph subscription information (published twice a month), please call 1.816.561.6266, or email: newstele@aol.com ==========================================================