From: WAND_M@gold.colorado.edu
Subject: Boycott may divide gay community
Followup-To: amend2-discuss@cs.colorado.edu
Originator: blough@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:52:35 GMT

By Michael Booth, Denver Post Staff Writer
December 6, 1992

Amendment 2 united Colorado gays and lesbians in opposition, but the boycott it 
has sparked threatens to shatter that accord as sharp disputes build over how 
to overturn the new law.

Prominent gay and lesbian leaders are refusing to join the boycott push.  While 
some support the boycott privately, they are letting Boycott Colorado--a new 
group formed by political neophytes--take the heat for the controversial 
campaign.

Meanwhile, mayors and other politicians nationwide are in similar disagreement. 
While Denver Mayor Wellington Webb opposes Amendment 2, he also opposes the 
boycott.

Tuesday, Webb will go to New York City to meet with Mayor David Dinkins, who 
supports the boycott and wants the U.S. Conference of Mayors to move its annual 
meeting, scheduled to bring 1,200 visitors to Colorado Springs in June.

In Colorado, gays and lesbians who were most visible before the election fear 
they will lose what mainstream support they had if they add their voices to 
those telling business and tourists to avoid Colorado.

Internal battles are developing, too, as Boycott Colorado leaders ignore 
suggestions to soften the ban on doing business with Colorado.

Some prominent gay leaders have asked boycott organizers to sanction travel 
here by gays who want to join protests, including a national march on Colorado 
Springs proposed for next spring.

They also have asked the group to back off its "absolutist" stance and 
encourage gays to follow their conscience in opposing Amendment 2 in a number 
of ways.

"They want to hermeticaly seal the borders," said Robin Miller, a Colorado 
Springs lesbian activist. Miller was a prominent voice in gay rights efforts 
before the election, but now she finds her opinions or suggestions drowned out 
by the more visible boycott activists.

"There's a great divergence of opinion on it.  There's no way to derive a 
consensus" in the gay community, she said.  "In the absence of consensus, this 
one viewpoint is all that is heard.  My fear is that seven people on the 
(boycott) steering committee could do damage to the movement here as a whole."

Boycott Colorado leaders acknowledge some dissension, but say they believe 90 
percent of the gay community supports the boycott.

A boycott can anger many, but the threat of economic loss alerts political and 
business leaders who otherwise would ignore Amendment 2, said Boycott Colorado 
spokeswoman Terry Schleder.

"This pressure is creating a change.  Look at what the Denver Chamber of 
Commerce did," Schleder said, referring to the chamber's post-election resolve 
to overturn Amendment 2.

"Boycotts are bad for business, but Amendment 2 is even worse for business."

Notable in thier absence from the boycott bustle, however, are longtime leaders 
of Colorado's gay rights movement.

People like Tony Ogden, who helped write Denver's anti-discrimination ordinance 
and now runs Equality Colorado, and Sue Anderson, director of the Gay and 
Lesbian Community Center of Colorado, are refusing to publicly support the ban.

"We do not take a position on the boycott.  We represent so many views, it was 
best for us to take a neutral position," said Ogden, describing Equality 
Colorado's broad base of business and religious support.

The boycott is working whether or not all gays support it, Ogden added.  "The 
thought of economic pressure is bringing people to the table...that would not 
otherwise be there.  We've got community and business leaders coming out of the 
woodwork now that were not active before."

National sentiment for the boycott may overwhelm any reluctance among Colorado 
gays, Anderson said.

"Some kind of a boycott is going to happen," she said.  "It's inevitable.  
Colorado voters have made a very strong statement about civil rights for gays 
and lesbians.  People are outraged.  And when they're outraged, there's not a 
lot that out-of-state people can do except boycott."

National gay and lesbian groups also have had to walk a fine political line.  
While angry about Colorado's vote, they did not want to undercut local 
leadership by calling for a boycott that would anger even those who opposed 
Amendment 2.

"We will be following the lead of Colorado activists," said Robin Kane, 
spokeswoman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington.  After 
delaying a decision, the task force is expected to join the boycott this week.

Some national analysts say a boycott threat acould have been an effective tool 
before the election.

Politicians should have warned voters that Colorado would face the same kind of 
boycott that hurt Arizona when it rejected a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, 
said Leonard Hirsch, a gay political scientist with the Smithsonian 
Institution.

Many gay and lesbian leaders on the East Coast feel that Colorado political and 
business leaders "rolled over and played dead" by failing to fight Amendment 2, 
Hirsch said.

And he's cynical about the business leaders who have organized to fight the law 
since the election.  "The business community should have been worried about it 
*beforehand*."

Amendment 2 supporters say the boycott has another political implication: It 
may illustrate that gay groups already have plenty of leverage and don't need 
discrimination protection.

"If the homosexuals and their supporters are capable of pulling off the 
financial restraint on the state they say they are capable of, it will prove 
what we've said," said Kevin Tebedo, spokesman for Colorado for Family Values.










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