Reprinted WOP from The Oregonian, Saturday Jan. 30 1993.

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OCA BRANCHES INTO WASHINGTON by Don Hamilton

OLYMPIA -- The Oregon Citizen's Alliance officially established its
Washington counterpart Friday.

The nonprofit organization is called the Citizens Alliance of Washington.
The name Washington Citizens Alliance was unavailable because it had
been registered last fall by a gay rights group.

The new group, OCA director Lon Mabon said at an Olympia news conference,
will be a broad-based political organization that might, at some point,
promote local measures and candidates.

Immediately afterward, though, Gov. Mike Lowry and several other statewide
officials denounced the association.  Lowry said that an anti-gay rights
measure would be morally wrong and would hurt international trade and
tourism in the state.

Friday evening, about 60 people gathered in Minnehaha Church, on Northeast
54th Street in Vancouver [WA] to hold an organizational meeting of the
group.  Hundreds of protesters outside in the cold held a candlelight
vigil and chanted as Clark County sheriff's deputies stood by.  Protesters,
who ranged in age from children in backpacks to college students to elders,
beat on drums as they chanted "L-O-V-E, that's the way it ought to be"
and "OCA, go away."  One young man was dressed as the Statue of Liberty.

As the meeting ended and the alliance organizers left, the protesters
dispersed peacefully.

Mabon had announced the formation of the group Friday afternoon beneath
the Capitol rotunda.  Missing from the announcement, though, was anyone
from the state of Washington.

The incorporation papers list the group's top officer as Robert R. Larimer
Jr., of Vancouver, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the Washington
state house in 1986.  Larimer, a machinist at Frito Lay, had to work 
Friday and was unable to attend the news conference, Mabon said.  Mabon
and Joe Lutz, a political associate from Oregon, joined Larimer on the
alliance's board of directors but ultimately will be replaced by 
Washingtonians.

The group will work to place an anti-gay rights measure on Washington's
ballot in the November 1994 election, the same day, Mabon hopes, as
identical measures in Oregon and Idaho.

Mabon said the group would reflect Washington and won't always look
like it's from Portland.

"There are people willing to take it on," he said.  "They're just waiting
for the right leadership to show them the way."

After Mabon's news conference, Lowry, Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, three
statewide officials and several state representatives, denounced the
group.

Charles F. Brydon, president of Washington Citizens for Fairness, formed
to oppose the new group, called the OCA a "radical extremist" organization
"crafted in support of the most extreme positions of the radical right."
The OCA, he said, "has oozed across the Columbia River to plant seeds
of intolerance and hatred in Washington."
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I'd like to apologise on behalf of the state of Oregon to our neighbors 
and friends in Washington and Idaho.

BTW Joe Lutz was an unsuccessful Senate candidate in the '86 Republican
primary running against Packwood.  He was a minister who got caught 
cheating on his wife, divorced her and married his mistress.  
Real shining example of family values, that one.

-- 
Brent Capps    (B4) htw-c++g+k++s-e++  | Collars and blindfolds and bullwhips
bcapps@agora.rain.com (gay stuff)      | that sting, these are a few
bcapps@atlastele.com (telecom stuff)   | of my favorite things