From: RMVLUG_4@FLINT.MINES.COLORADO.EDU (FRANK BERNDT)
Subject: Denver Mayor Webb tries to shift focus
Followup-To: amend2-discuss@cs.colorado.edu
Originator: doherty@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 18:35:31 GMT

SMRY: Entertainers Gathering Forces

ENTERTAINERS GATHERING FORCES
Colorado-California group plans to work to overturn law instead
of encouraging boycott

By John Accola, Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
Rocky Mountain News, Tues., Dec. 8, 1992

-------------------------------

     Representatives of the entertainment industry in Colorado
and California are combining forces for a public education
campaign aimed at repealing Amendment 2.
     Coloradans and Californians for Fairness in the Nation
(COFFIN), a Los Angeles-based group formed after passage of the
Colorado initiative, is trying to raise money for the project by
placing ads in gay publications.
     COFFIN, whose executive members include Denver promoter
Barry Fey and a co-producer of the Tonight Show, has enlisted
Brooks-Gruman -- a Santa Monica, Calif., advertising agency -- to
create ads for the January issues of the Advocate and three other
gay-oriented magazines.
     The ads, which call on readers to "bury the politics of
hate," request donations be sent to the Colorado Legal Initiative
Project, a Denver lawyers group aiding in a lawsuit challenging
the constitutionality of Amendment 2, which bans laws that grant
protected states to homosexuals.
     COFFIN spokesman Phil Lobel, a Los Angeles publicist, said
his group also has contacted Tom and Roseanne Arnold, Whoopi
Goldberg and Michael Douglas to star in a Colorado TV spot.
     Lobel said COFFIN hopes to use the stars to convince
Coloradans that Amendment 2's passage was a mistake that must be
overturned in court or in another election.
     "We're going after the hearts, mind and wallets of
Coloradans," Lobel said.
     In addition to Fey, prominent members of COFFIN's executive
committee include Bill Royce, a co-producer of The Tonight Show;
Rod Kahanee, manager of singer George Michaels; and Timm Collins,
manager of the group Aerosmith.
     COFFIN initially endorsed an economic boycott of Colorado
but backed off after negative reaction from stars who own homes
or do business in the state.
     Fey said an entertainment industry-led campaign that spells
out the inequities of Amendment 2 is more realistic.  "From my
standpoint, it's very feasible."
     Denver is a popular concert city for big rock groups;
allowing those entertainers to actively campaign for Amendment
2's repeal rather than boycott the state is good strategy, he
said.
     In another development Monday, an ad hoc group of Aspen and
Snowmass officials decided to continue an ad campaign designed to
head off a boycott during the holiday ski season.  Kitty Boone,
vice president of marketing for Aspen Skiing Co., said an ad will
appear in the January Advocate and possibly the Sunday New York
Times.


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