From: WAND_M@gold.colorado.edu
Subject: Colorado Campaign May Be Misdirected
Followup-To: amend2-discuss@cs.colorado.edu
Originator: doherty@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 03:31:22 GMT

The Wall Street Journal
Jnauary 19, 1993

By Marj Charlier, Advertising

Colorado has bene taking it on the chin for its constitutional amendment 
prohibiting passage of laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination.  
Current ad campaigns aimed at thwarting a boycott of the state may fail to help 
Colorado work its way out of the mess.

Certainly, there is cause for panic and action in Colorado.  Since the state's 
voters approved the anti-gay amendment in November, Barbra Streisand and other 
Hollywood figures called for a national boycott of the state, and a number of 
conventions have been canceled.  At least eight major cities have voted to ban 
travel to Colorado or to stop doing business with companies in the state.  The 
National Organization for Women and Amerians for Democratic Action have 
endorsed the boycott as well.

A few Colorado groups are attempting to stem the backlash by advertising 
plaintive appeals in national publications.  Aspen and the Aspen Skiing Co. ran 
ads in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times telling people that Aspen 
residents voted against the amendment.  The Denver Center for the Performing 
Arts ran ads in November in Variety, Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter 
asking the entertainment industry to support Denver, Boulder and Aspen, which 
all voted against the anti-gay measure.

Now the Denver Metro Convention and Visitor's Bureau has launched a 
self-produced January advertising campaign, telling readers of several 
convention magazines: "Denver is getting a black eye.  But is it deserved?"  
The full-page ad argues that boycotting the city would hurt those who oppose 
the amendment the most.  Even the crew and cast of "Perry Mason" TV movies, 
which are produced in Colorado, took out a two-page color ad attacking the 
boycott.

But advertising is the wrong approach to the problem, according to tourism 
officials in Arizona, which became a pariah state for the 1989 vote that 
removed Martin Luther King's birthday as a holiday on the state calendar.  In 
terms of averting the boycott, advertising "is a frivolous attempt," says Art 
Bouffard, deputy director of the Arizona Hotel and Motel Association.  "It 
wouldn't have worked in Arizona."

Instead of trying to change outsiders' impression of Arizona, the state focused 
on changing the minds of its own voters.  They were told of the high cost of 
their 1989 decision.  Arizona's travel office says the boycott has caused the 
state to lose as much as $250 million in revenue--including the loss of the 
1993 Super Bowl, which will be played on Jan. 31 in Pasadena, Calif., instead 
of Phoenix as originally planned.

Arizona voters finally approved the holiday in November, largely because of a 
grass-roots campaign orchestrated vy the hospitality industry.  The state's 
154,000 restaurant and hotel workers were encouraged to register to vote--many 
never had--and were given information about the impact of the boycott on their 
industry.  The campaign, which cost less than $2 million, was kept low-key 
until two weeks before the 1992 election, giving its opposition little chance 
to fight back.

About 200,000 new voters showed up at the polls in November, Mr. Bouffard says. 
And the very next day, thousands of "room-nights"--the industry's measure of 
hotel rooms booked for conventions--were booked in Arizona cities, he said.

Some organizers in the effort to overturn the amendment in Colorado also 
believe advertising--especially to a national audience--is futile.  
"Advertising is an emotional response,"says Bob Schenkein, of Schenkein-Sherman 
Public Relations, who has helped form a statewide coalition to push for a new 
vote to overturn the anti-gay rights amendment.

The state of Colorado is caught between a rock and a hard place over the 
issue.  While state attorneys must defend Amendment 2, as it is known, against 
court challenges, many Colorado leaders, including Gov. Roy Romer, oppose the 
law.  The governor says his position on Amendment 2 has contributed to a 
six-point decline in his approval rating from May to December.

By law, the state can't spend money on an ad campaign defending itself.  It is 
unlikely that such an effort would play well in Colroado anyway.  Coloradans, 
who identify with a kind of Wild West independence, aren't taking kindly to the 
boycott.  In November 47% of the state electorate voted against the anti-gay 
measure; but by this month only 36% of Coloradans said they though a repeal 
effort would succeed, according to a poll published by the Denver Post and a 
local TV station.  (Note: results of this poll have previously been entered on 
this network.  Wand.)

Joseph Nee, a Colorado Springs upholsterer who has founded the anti-boycott 
group Back-Off Colorado, says there's "something fundamentally wrong" with 
boycott supporters interfering with the democratic process.  "We have to get 
them off our backs."

As was the case with Arizona's Martin Luther King day debacle, many Coloradans 
feel they have been unfairly targeted for passing an amendment that would pass 
elsewhere if it came up for a vote.  In Georgia, it is a felony to participate 
in homosexual activities.  Yet Atlanta is one of the cities that have voted to 
boycott Colorado, Mr. Schenkein says.

Fully 135 cities covering 20% of the U.S. population have passed laws 
protecting homosexuals from discrinination.  Denver, Boulder and Aspen--the 
Colorado cities most likely to be hurt by the boycott--had passed laws 
protecting homosexuals form discrimination.  Those laws were slated to be 
overturned last Friday, but a Colorado state judge temporarily blocked the ban 
on gay-rights protections from taking effect, saying that homosexuals have a 
fundamental right "not to have the state endorse and give effect to private 
biases."  The state said it would appeal the ruling to the Colorado Supreme 
Court.

At this point, it is difficult to assess the long-term economic impact of the 
amendment and the boycott on Colorado.  Boycott Colorado, an activist group, 
claims the impact so far is $25 million in lost revenue.  Some dispute that 
figure.  Despite Friday's ruling, Boycott Colorado officials said they wouldn't 
call off their nationwide boycott.

The Denver convention bureau says it has lost two conventions so far, 
estimating the price tag at about $5 million.  But a spokesman says the major 
inpact could come later, as organizations eliminate Colorado from future site 
consideration.  Colorado Springs has lost two conventions, representing another 
$1 million, but has picke up new conventions to replace them.  (El Paso County, 
which includes Colorado Springs, voted for the amendment by a 2-1 margin.)

Yet Colorado's ski resorts reported a banner Christmas season, despite the 
boycott. In Aspen, revervations for December rose about 12% from 1991.  
Statewide, many resorts reported better Christmas crowds, in part because of 
good snow conditions.

The same thing happened in Arizona, says Leia James, a spokeswoman for the 
Arizona Office of Tourism.  Individual travelers and vacationers didn't cancel 
their trips, but big-money conventions did.  If Colorado groups must use 
advertising to combat a boycott, ads placed in convention publications would be 
most effective, she says.  "It gives you something to target."

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