From: WAND_M@gold.colorado.edu
Subject: Newcomers push boycott
Followup-To: amend2-discuss@cs.colorado.edu
Originator: doherty@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 06:04:32 GMT

By Louis Aguilar
Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph
December 10, 1992

Effort promoted in spare time

They've been on television urging people not to even think about visiting 
Colorado. They've been interviewed by the national press, calling Colorado the 
"state of hate."

Considering the name of the group, Boycott Colorado, you'd think they are the 
wizards behind the multimillion dollar backlash triggered by passage of 
Amendment 2.

But get past the angry, high-profile sheen of this group and you'll find nine 
political newcomers struggling to keep up with the swirl of threatened and 
actual boycotts of Colorado.

"Boy, I wish we were as organized as people think we are," said Robert Briggs 
Daniels, a 24-year-old office clerk in Denver and a spokesman for the group.

"We are trying to be an information base about the boycott, but we even have 
trouble keeping up.  It really is bigger than us," he said.

Actually, the group is a grass-roots organization made up of people who try to 
work on the boycott issue between their day jobs.  Briggs Daniels, for example, 
usually rushes home during his lunch hour to return calls.

Briggs Daniels and spokeswoman Terry Schleder said they field about 20 to 30 
calls a day.  They include calls from organizations and businesses thinking 
about holding conventions and travel junkets in Colorado or who have money tied 
up in the state.  They also get a fair number of questions from reporters.

Although its campaign is informal, Boycott Colorado is managing to keep the 
heat on--much to the chagrin of business and political leaders who say a 
boycott is unfair.

While larger, influential groups such as Equality Colorado (which campaigned 
against the amendment before the election) and the National Gay and Lesbian 
Task Force in Washington, D.C., haven't endorsed a boycott, they don't mind 
leading you to members of Boycott Colorado and letting you hear their anger.

What does Amendment 2 make Colorado?  "The first state to legalize 
discrimination," Schleder replies.

Why should people boycott Colorado?  "Because you would be giving money to a 
state that has given the OK to gay-bash," Briggs Daniels responds.

The group itself doesn't claim any trophies.  Although Denver has already lost 
an estimated $10.6 million in convention business and a couple of groups have 
pulled meetings from Colorado Springs, Boycott Colorado isn't directly 
responsible.

"Never heard of them," said Sara Wallace of the National Council for Social 
Studies, a group that canceled its Denver convention over Amendment 2.

Boycott Colorado was born six days aftaer the Nov. 3 passage of Amendment 2 
during a meeting of 1,500 people in a Denver church.  Many were shocked that 
state voters had approved a constitutional amendment barring laws protecting 
gays from discrimination based on sexual orientation.  They wanted to organize 
and fight Amendment 2 immediately and in as many ways as possible.

Equality Colorado is beginning an educational campaign and enlisting business, 
civic and political opponents of the measure.  The Colorado Legal Initiative 
Project is heading the coalition of individuals and cities challenging the 
amendment in court.  And Boycott Colorado?

The name says it all.

Besides Briggs Daniels, the other board members include Schleder, who writes a 
lesbian newsletter in Denver, two nurses, a college financial aid officer, a 
man with the virus that causes AIDS, a college student, and several 
self-employed businessmen.  They weren't particularly high-profile activists 
before joining the group, and several didn't even know each other.

The group, which has no office, is trying to keep tabs on boycott announcements 
and is preparaing a list of businesses that supported or fought the amendment.  
The plan is to give the list to Amendment 2 critics who can then boycott 
businesses that supported its passage.

Perhaps the group's most publicized effort was when it wrote the U.S. Olympic 
Committee, demanding it move its headquarters from Colorado Springs, the 
birthplace of Amendment 2.  The committee said no.

"I guess they just endorse hate," Schleder said.  But USOC officials said it 
was the mammoth cost and inconvenience of moving the facility, not hate, that 
made Boycott Colorado's demand unthinkable.

But the rebuff didn't deter Boycott Colorado.  Its leaders say they are going 
to hit Colorado hard until it hurts.

"We are going to make mistakes," Schleder said.  "But we are getting so much 
attention right now because we have the right message.  Colorado has passed a 
terrible law and it must suffer until it tears down that law."

Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, himself a ctitic of Amendment 2, has a different 
idea about how bad law should be resisted.  He offered this analogy to talk 
show host Arsenio Hall on national television last week: "When some of us were 
trying to desegregate the South, we went south."



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Corrections, new info, and requests for info: amend2-info@cs.colorado.edu
Administrative comments                     : amend2-mod@cs.colorado.edu
General Discussion                          : amend2-discuss@cs.colorado.edu
Boulder/Denver area local meetings/events   : amend2-local@cs.colorado.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To subscribe to a list, send mail to Majordomo@cs.colorado.edu, with
        subscribe <list-name>
in the BODY of the message.  For multiple lists, use multiple lines.

Newsgroups: co.politics.amend2.info