Group says homosexuals don’t deserve minority status
ICA files anti-gay initiative
What the initiative says
Minority status
• No public agency shall enact
any measure establishing homosexuality
as a minority status, or granting
homosexuals any protection
based on such status.
Schools
• Prohibits public schools from indicating
to students, employees or
children that homosexuality is
healthy or acceptable.
Public funds
• No government funds may be
used to sanction or express approv-
al of homosexuality.
Libraries
• Public libraries may still provide
adults with materials that address
homosexuality.
Equal protection
• No citizen shall be denied government
services, licenses or approvals
based on private sexual
practices.
Kevin Clark/The Idaho Statesman
Idaho Citizens Alliance leader Kelly Walton, right, talks at the Statehouse steps Thursday about the anti-gay initiative his group is sponsoring. Twelve ICA supporters and 110 opponents showed up for the announcement.
Proposal is 'toned-down' version of
Oregon's Opponents say 'fear and
hatred' drive the movement.
By Dan Popkey and Kim Eckart
The Idaho Statesman
The battle over gay rights in Idaho began
in earnest Thursday when the Idaho
Citizens Alliance filed an initiative prohibiting
the state from condoning homosexuality.
The initiative would prohibit "minority .
status" for gays, bar schools from teaching
homosexuality as "a healthy or acceptable
lifestyle" and prohibit public spending "to
sanction or express approval of homosexuality."
"We feel that a man sleeping with a man.
or a woman sleeping with a woman does
not warrant minority status," said ICA
Chairman Kelly Walton. "It’s a behavior."
About 110 people turned out to oppose
the initiative. Most wore black to symbol-
ize "an official day of mourning for civil
rights in Idaho." In addition to Walton, 12
ICA supporters were on hand.
Inside on 3C
• Potatoes likely target of boycotts
• Supporters, opponents discuss initiative
Brian Bergquist,
chair of Idaho for
Human dignity -
a group formed to
battle the measure
- said the initiative
discriminates
against homosex-
uals. Civil rights
- not special sta-
tus - are what
gays and lesbians
want and deserve,
he said.
Friday
March 5, 1993
“What are spe-
cial rights? Are
they the right to a
job? The right eat
dinner in a res-
taurant?'' Berg-
quist said. “we
need to get past
this rhetoric.”
On4C
• The text of the initiative
Walton said the measure includes protec-
tions for gays, including a provision
that no citizen be denied "governmental
services, licenses, or approvals" on the
basis of "private sexual practices."
To place the measure on the November
1994 ballot, the ICA must collect 32,061
signatures from registered voters by July
1994. "It's a hard job," said Walton, who
campaigned for an even tougher measure
that failed in Oregon last November.
"It's a very benign version of what they
did in Oregon," said Jim Risch, a Boise
lawyer and former leader of the Idaho
Senate. ''There's a toning down of the
language, but more importantly, the actual
substance is toned down tremendously."
The Oregon ballot measure condemned
homosexuality as "abnormal, wrong, unnatural
and perverse."
The Idaho initiative was attacked by
organizers of a boycott against Colorado
after that state's approval of a similar
measure in November.
"These militant fundamentalists will
stop at nothing," said Jan Williams, a
representative for Boycott Colorado Inc. of
Denver. "They will generate such fear,
such hatred and such resentment that they
will probably win in Idaho."
Opposition also came from a wide political
spectrum, including Rep. Larry LaRocco,
D-ldaho.
"The last thing our state needs is an
imported hate campaign," he said.
