From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: 10,000 protest Oregon anti-gay measure /ww
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 19:56:36 GMT


 10,000 protest Oregon anti-gay measure
 By Brenda Sandburg Portland, Ore.

Over 10,000 people--lesbian, gay and straight--filled Pioneer
Courthouse Square here Oct. 4 to demonstrate against Measure 9,
which will appear on Oregon's ballot in November. The measure
would institutionalize anti-lesbian/gay discrimination, bar all
civil rights protections for lesbians and gay men, and officially
brand homosexuality "abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse."

Lesbian and gay rights activists, unions, teachers and various
community groups have united to defeat the measure. Nine labor
leaders representing 125,000 Oregon workers held a news
conference the day before the rally to denounce Measure 9 as
anti-worker. They said it would allow bosses to fire workers for
what the boss thinks they may be doing in the privacy of their
own home.

At the rally, Irv Fletcher, president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, said
the state will lose jobs and money if the ballot measure is
passed. He said, "Oregon would have to put up a billboard that
said, `No conventions need come to Oregon unless all clients have
the correct sexual orientation'."

The Oregon Citizen's Alliance--an organization of right-wing
groups opposed to civil rights for lesbians and gays and to
affirmative action, reproductive freedom, and parental leave for
workers--put the measure on the ballot. If passed, it would
enshrine in the state constitution language saying  "the state
shall not recognize any categorical provision such as `sexual
orientation,' `sexual preference,' and similar phrases that
include homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism or masochism."

Libraries would be required to remove any books or magazines that
have positive references to homosexuality. Television programs
would be censored. Lesbian or gay public employees or those
suspected of being gay could be fired. State licenses could be
revoked for doctors, lawyers, nurses, hairdressers, social
workers and others who are perceived to be gay or lesbian--or
those who appear to "facilitate" homosexuality, whatever that
means.

The measure would also require public schools, colleges and
universities to teach that homosexuality is "abnormal, wrong,
unnatural, and perverse" and should be "discouraged and avoided."
Educators warn this could directly lead to an increase in the
suicide rate among lesbian and gay teenagers, which is already
alarmingly high.

According to OCA, the measure would simply block the state from
allocating "special rights" to lesbians and gays. But Urvashi
Vaid, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force, told the rally: "According to the U.S. Justice Department,
lesbians and gay men enjoy the `special right' of being ...
targets of hate violence ... [and] lesbians and gay men have the
`special privilege' of living with the fear that our house could
be torched by racist and anti-gay skinheads."

CAMPAIGN LEADS TO MURDER

In fact, OCA's campaign to win passage of measure 9 is already
killing lesbian and gay people in Oregon, as reactionary forces
are emboldened to take the offensive. The week before the Oct. 4
rally, anti-gay terrorists firebombed an apartment building in
Salem, Ore., killing a gay man and a lesbian, Brian Mock and
Hattie Mae Cohens. Three others who were in the building are
hospitalized.

The skinheads had harassed Mock and Cohens for six weeks before
the bombing. Two weeks earlier they beat Mock, a disabled man, so
badly that he had to undergo reconstructive surgery. Cohens and
her cousins fought back, beating up the group's ringleader.

Police arrested four people, including two skinheads, for the
firebombing. But they labeled the murders a gang-related action
rather than an anti-gay/lesbian attack. And they charged Cohens'
cousins with assault and themselves being members of a gang.

Jeanette Pai, founder and co-chair of the Asian Pacific American
Alliance and president of the Northwest Coalition Against
Malicious Harassment, spoke at the Oct. 4 rally. She said the
increasing violence against lesbians and gays, the killing of
Mock and Cohens, and the introduction of Measure 9 are all
related.

"We must act now, not only to defeat Proposition 9, but also to
send out a message that we won't tolerate any act of bigotry,"
Pai said.

Sherry Harris, an African American lesbian member of the Seattle
city council, also delivered a message of solidarity. She noted
that people are holding fund-raising actions in Seattle to help
the anti-9 organizing effort. And she said a contingent of people
are going from Washington to Oregon to help get out the anti-9
vote on election day.

Another anti-gay/lesbian measure, Amendment No. 2, will appear on
the ballot in Colorado. It would prohibit local governments from
adopting laws barring discrimination against lesbians and gays.
According to the committee organizing against the Colorado
measure, eight gay men have been murdered since Amendment 2 was
introduced--four within the past two weeks.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers@mcimail.com".)

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