Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 15:16:54 -0700
From: Eros Publishing <aubrey@wolfenet.com>
Subject: Press Release

OCA files anti-gay rights initiative targeting schools
The group, whose last two initiatives attacking homosexuality failed, 
chooses
 an easier path to the ballot
By Jeff Mapes of The Oregonian staff
     The Oregon Citizens Alliance, which considered disbanding last month,
 appears to have settled on a strategy for a political comeback.
     The group has filed a new anti-gay rights initiative that focuses on
 public schools and is easier to qualify for the ballot than its last two
 measures dealing with homosexuality.
     The new initiative, which the OCA filed last week for the 2000 
general  election, would prohibit public schools in Oregon from discussing
 homosexuality and bisexuality "in a manner which encourages, promotes or
 sanctions such behaviors."
     "I personally think that most Oregonians would probably agree with 
the  general premise of it," OCA Chairman Lon Mabon said Monday night. "It
doesn't  prohibit an academic mention of homosexuality; it prohibits that
which  promotes it."
     The OCA included schools in 1992 and 1994 ballot measures that 
contained  more broad attacks on homosexuality. Both measures were defeated,
although the 1994 initiative received almost 49 percent of the vote.
     Since then, the OCA has had a harder time raising money while several
 Republican political leaders have worked to distance themselves from the
 group.
     This year, the group spent $172,000 in a failed effort to qualify 
ballot  measures attacking gay marriages and abortions after the first
trimester. Mabon called a meeting of the group's board of directors in July
and emerged with a mandate to launch another measure involving gay rights.
     Mabon said in July that the 1994 vote showed the group was near 
having a majority of voters on the issue.
     The new OCA measure seeks only to change Oregon law, not the state
 constitution. A constitutional amendment had been the group's strategy 
in the past to make sure the Legislature couldn't change any measure
approved by  voters.
     Changes in the law are easier to get on the ballot. They require 
about 73,000 signatures from registered voters, compared with more than
97,000 for a constitutional amendment.
     Charles Hinkle, a Portland lawyer who has worked with the American 
Civil Liberties Union in opposition to the OCA measures, said the new 
initiative seems designed to energize the group's past supporters.
     "The point is to keep the issue alive so the money keeps rolling in,"
 Hinkle said.
     Hinkle said he thinks the initiative is unconstitutional. He said it
 would run afoul of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that public schools can't 
be ordered to teach "from a particular religious perspective."
     Chris Dudley, executive director of the Oregon School Boards 
Association, said he couldn't predict what effect the initiative would have
on the state's schools.
     "I don't know because it's so subjective," he said of the 
initiative's wording.
     It's unclear whether the OCA will seek signatures for the new 
initiative. Groups frequently file several initiatives with different
wording to see which one receives the most politically attractive ballot
title from the state.
     The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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