From: Jason Lin <71043.1570@compuserve.com>
Subject: US Mayors
Followup-To: amend2-discuss@cs.colorado.edu
Originator: doherty@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 01:30:34 GMT

   DENVER, Colo. (AP) -- The U.S. Conference of Mayors should move
its annual meeting out of Colorado Springs to protest a bill that
restricts civil rights protection for homosexuals, the mayors of
New York and Atlanta say.  
   Denver Mayor Wellington Webb plans to visit New York on Tuesday
to try to curb the protest.  
   The law, known as Amendment 2, was approved by Colorado voters
in the Nov. 3 general election. It repeals local anti-bias laws
that protected gays from discrimination, and bans any future local
or state law.  
   New York Mayor David Dinkins "would recommend to his colleagues
that they consider not holding the event in Colorado Springs," and
will stay away if the meeting is held there as planned, his press
secretary, Lee Jones, said Friday.  
   The conference's executive committee is to vote next month on
the suggestion. The conference is expected to bring 1,200 people to
Colorado next June.  
   Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, whose city council has prohibited
city officials from going to Colorado because of the amendment,
wrote to conference officials two weeks ago to ask that the
conference be moved.  
   This week, filmmakers moved production of a television mini-
series to Utah from the planned location of Colorado Springs
because of Amendment 2.  
   Since the bill's passage, several groups have canceled
conference plans in the state, including the National Organization
for Women, the National Association of Social Workers and the
American Association of Law Libraries.  
   Also, a gay group on Friday issued a "travel advisory" to
homosexuals planning trips to Colorado, saying "adverse conditions"
exist now in the state.  
   The advisory asks members to avoid Colorado until Amendment 2 is
repealed, said William Waybourn, executive director of the
Washington-based Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a national political
action committee that raises money for openly gay and lesbian
candidates.  
   "The lesbian and gay community should ski slopes in Oregon,
Vermont or New Mexico, three states that have elected openly
lesbian and gay public officials," said Lynn Greer, a Victory Fund
co-chair from Columbus, Ohio.  
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's mayors on Thursday cancelled
plans to hold their annual conference in Colorado next year because
of that state's passage of an anti-gay rights law.  
   The U.S. Conference of Mayors' executive committee said it would
select a new site for its June 1993 meeting in the near future.   
  The meeting had been set for Colorado Springs. Its mayor,
Republican Robert Isaac, is a past president of the U.S. Conference
of Mayors and had pushed for years to have the group meet in his
city.  
   The week-long conference regularly attracts the elected leaders
of the nation's largest cities. Next year's meeting had been thrown
into doubt in recent weeks when several big-city mayors said they
would not go to Colorado Springs because of the passage of the
anti-gay Amendment 2.  
   New York Mayor David Dinkins, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley,
Seattle Mayor Norm Rice and Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell each
said in recent weeks they would not attend because of the law,
according to conference officials.  
   In addition, the Atlanta City Council voted to ban official
travel and spending in Colorado, a move that could have prevented
Mayor Maynard Jackson from attending, and the Los Angeles city
council passed a resolution urging that the meeting be moved.     
J. Thomas Cochran, executive director of the conference, called the
decision "a moral one" and said it was reached in an
"emotional" private meeting of the executive committee.  
   He said it was based on an eight-year-old conference policy that
says the U.S. Conference of Mayors "recognizes the right of all
citizens, regardless of sexual orientation, to full participation
in American society, and recommends that all levels of government
adopt legal protections for the rights of gay and lesbian
Americans."      The group plans its meetings far in advance, and
Colorado Springs had been selected in 1989 as the site for next
year's meeting, Cochran said.  
   Colorado's law has been challenged in a lawsuit. And a coalition
called Boycott Colorado has been formed to encourage tourists,
corporations and associations to stay away until the law is
rescinded.   




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