From: WAND_M@gold.colorado.edu
Subject: Amendment 2 scuttles librarian meeting
Followup-To: amend2-discuss@cs.colorado.edu
Originator: doherty@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 00:29:56 GMT

The Denver Post
January 24, 1993

By Mark Obmascik, Staff Writer

In short:  Amendment 2 falout continues as a 5,000-member convention snubs 
Denver.

The American Library Association yesterday canceled plans to bring 5,000 
members to Denver for a 1998 convention because of Colorado's vote in favor of 
Amendment 2.

The association, which has 5,000 people at the Colorado Convention Center this 
week as part of another meeting, said it won't return to the state until the 
amendment is overturned by voters.

Amendment 2 would ban government from enacting laws that protect homosexuals 
from discrimination in housing, employment and public accomodations.  A Denver 
judge, citing constitutional concerns, earlier this month issued an injunction 
preventing the law from taking effect as scheduled.

The national boycott of Colorado because of Amendment 2 so far has cost Denver 
at least $5 million in business, city officials said.  Among the groups that 
have canceled Colorado meeting plans are the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the 
National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

"The American Library Association has a long tradition of supporting equal 
rights and intellectual freedom, said the group's president, Marilyn Miller.  
"We feel the existence of Amendment 2 threatens both in Colorado--and perhaps 
in other parts of the country in the form of copycat legislation.

"As a profession, librarians are committed to providing information and 
resources that reflect the diversity of human experience and promote 
understanding of all people.  Curtailing one freedom only makes it easier to 
curtail another."

Colorado's approval of Amendment 2 in the November election caught the trade 
group off-guard, said spokeswoman Pam Goodes.

It would have been difficult--if not impossible--to relocate the convention now 
under way in Denver in just two months, she said.  The group also would have 
lost $4 million in deposits if it had canceled this year's convention, which 
started Friday and runs through Thursday, she said.

The library association's policies specifically support "equal opportunity for 
gay librarians and library workers."

Group directors voted 8-2 to cancel the 1998 Denver convention.  The two 
dissenters were Nancy Bolt, deputy Colorado state librarian, and J. Dennis Day, 
director of the Salt Lake City Public Library.

The group's Social Responsibilities Round Table and Gay and Lesbian Task Force 
plan a rally tomorrow against Amendment 2.  It will begin at the Colorado 
Convention Center and progress to the steps of the state Capitol.

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