From: WAND_M@gold.colorado.edu
Subject: Webb interview Part II
Followup-To: amend2-discuss@cs.colorado.edu
Originator: doherty@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 20:40:40 GMT

Welcome back to the show.  I'm Gil Gross. We're discussing Amendment 2 in 
Colorado and also the calls for a boycott in Colorado, which we'll get to in a 
little bit.  Wellington Webb, the Mayor of Denver, is in the studio with me, 
and so is Linda Fowler, the Chair of the Denver Gay and Lesbian Advisory 
Committee.  On the phone with me from Colorado is John Andrews, who was the 
Republican nominee for governor in 1990.  And John, you basically asked Linda 
Fowler whether there were any crimes, people being denied housing, people being 
kicked out of their jobs and all that kind of thing.

A - Well, I'm not asking about crimes, because Denver and Colorado law 
enforcement authorites are very vigilant against crimes that would be 
committed toward anyone, but I'm really asking about employment and housing.

G - Are people being thrown out of their jobs or thrown out of their housing or 
denied housing or denied jobs because they were gay.  In other words, was there 
a problem in the first place.

F - The answer is yes, there is a problem.  There has been a problem for a good 
many years.  The Gay and Lesbian Community Center in Denver has been compiling 
statistics for several years on people who have either been discriminated 
against in employment or in housing.  An interesting thing that has happened 
since the passage of Amendment 2 is that a group called Focus on the Family in 
Colorado Springs has requested the El Paso County Department of Education, or 
school board, as it were, in El Paso County--El Paso County is the county in 
which Colorado Springs is located--have requested from that group a listing of 
all the single teachers who have no dependents.

G - Really!  That would seem to be none of their damned business under any 
circumstances, whether we're talking about homosexuals, heterosexuals, or 
whatever.

A - If I were on the school board I certainly wouldn't give it to them.  I 
don't think it's any of their business.

F - I think one has to produce it if it's a matter of public record.  You don't 
have to break it out by who'se married or who'se not.  But a list of teachers 
has to be given if asked for.

G - By name?

F - That's the way I understand it, yes.  It's a matter of public record.

G - Fairly frightening, John, don't you think?

A - Well, I have no idea what they would intend to do with it.  It sounds to me 
as if they ought to have a lot better things to do with their time.  And we'll 
have to see where it goes.  I'll tell you and your listeners, Gil, that whether 
or not whichever side of Amendment 2 I was on, if I were to see some sort of 
organized campaign such as that suggests developing, I think the Mayor and Miss 
Fowler and I would all be on the same side of wanting to oppose that in every 
way we could.

G - But I guess what's happening here is some people have been empowered by 
this, that this is not so much denying due rights to gays, that this was sort 
of an empowerment to discriminate.

A - Well, Colorado Springs, the area that she's talking about, your listeners 
should know has specifically turned down at the ballot box a homosexual rights 
ordinance for the city in the past.  There was no statewide homosexual rights 
law and this is something else that people do need to know.

G - OK, I've got to take a break here.  When we come back, let's take phone 
calls, and I want to start addressing the whole boycott issue, because that's 
why I've got all these people screaming outside my door.

                             Commercial break

G - I'm Gil Gross.  Welcome to the show.  Tonight we are talking this hour 
about what happened in Colorado Amendment 2, which basically stopped the state 
of Colorado from passing, and cities in Colorado such as Denver, Aspen and 
other cities which either might have them on the books or want to have them on 
the books from passing any laws that would give any sort of civil rights 
protection to gays.  Wellington Webb, the Mayor of Denver, Colorado, is in the 
studio with me, and so is Linda Fowler, the Chair of the Denver Gay and Lesbian 
Advisory Committee.  On the phone with me, John Andrews, who was the Republican 
nominee for governor in 1990.  You're on the phone too at 1-800-456-1227, and 
I'll put you on the phone in a second.  Got to ask the Mayor first about the 
boycott.  Now, you and the people who are picketing my studio right now trying 
to get your attention, and who I understand have been following you around all 
day, are in agreement on Amendment 2, but they're yelling and screaming at you 
because they want a boycott of Colorado until the law is changed, and you're 
saying no boycott, let us work this out.

W - Wel, I think the boycott is certainly an inadequate strategy for people 
outside of the city to recommend as a way of trying to reach their goal, which 
I guess in this case is similar to mine in terms of repeal of Amendment 2.  I 
think that the second issue for me is this is a national issue in that 
certainly discrimination exits, and thirdly that I don't think it's helpful.  
The boycott is not helpful.

G - Why isn't it helpful?

W - Well, in effect then if you have the boycott, what you do in many cases is 
reward cities in other parts of the country that have no equal protection 
ordinance at all.  If, for example, let's say that there was a convention that 
was planned to come to Denver and that convention then cancelled and goes to 
another city that had no equal protection ordinance, in effect, then, what you 
are doing is rewarding cities that weren't aggressive enough to file ordinances 
to protect the rights of gays and lesbians in their city, as well as protecting 
all people, in going to cities that didn't have an ordinance to begin with.

G - But some of the arguments that you have used against the idea of a boycott 
for the people who want this could have been used against the successful 
boycott of Arizona over the Martin Luther King Day argument.  Certainly the 
kind of argument you are using was used by people on behalf of South Africa 
when people in this country were saying it's hurting the blacks as well as the 
whites, and you should not do it.  That's the same sort of thing.

W - Well, I don't think it's the same because I think if you use the South 
African analogy that the government--that the elected leadership of the 
government--of South Africa was promulgating was apartheid.  In this case what 
you have is the government officials that are pursuing providing equal 
protection for all its citizens, so I don't think that analogy holds.

G - Well, the boycotters are mad at the people of Arizona.  They may not be mad 
at your personally but they're mad at the people of Colorado in this case.  It 
was Arizona in the Martin Luther King thing and now they're mad at the people 
of Colorado, and they don't want to give you their business.

W - I understand, and I think that, number one, I think that the other part of 
that is that if you really want to provide support, maybe you also need to ask 
a couple of questions.  Does your city have an equal protection ordinance?  
Does your state have an equal protection ordinance?  It's my belief that this 
is going to be part of a national campaign to--what took place in Colorado and 
Oregon I think we're going to see in many other states around the country.

G - All right, let me go to the phones because I've got a lot of calls for all 
of you.  We'll start with John in Colorado Springs.  Hi, John.

J - Hi, Gil.  It's great to be on your program.  Thanks for allowing me the 
time.

G - Welcome, no problem.o--I have a question for the mayor, but after listening 
to all of the (unintelligible word) I would like to say a couple of things if I
J - Hey, I just wanted too-I have a question for the mayor, but after listening 
toted for Amendment 2 because I did not believe and do not believe now that it 
is a discriminatory law.  I believe that it is simply maintaining the fact 
that the way somebody has sex doesn't get special rights and I'm going to spend 
as much money as I can and put my power behind making sure it stands.  The 
question I have for Mayor Webb is this: he mentioned Denver, Boulder and Aspen. 
He didn't mention that the major counties surrounding his town, Arapahoe and 
Jefferson County, the big counties, all voted in favor of Amendment 2 and he 
acts as though the rest of the state doesn't exist.  He forgot to tell the 
listeners that somewhere around 805,000 people put this thing on the amendment 
in the democratic process, the same process that put him in office as a mayor, 
and I am really quite flabbergasted and a bit disgusted that he would go on a 
national program and act like he's speaking for the state.  These boycotts as a 
businessman don't worry me because I don't believe they have the power to pull 
it off, and I think it's a big media hype being pumped by Mayor Webb and the 
rest.  Mayor, as a citizen of this state, why don't you go back to Denver and 
work with your people in Denver and quit acting like you speak for me and the 
rest of the state.

W - Well, one, you've never heard me say that I was speaking for the state.  I 
said as the mayor of Denver.  And if you heard the first part of the show, you 
also heard me say that 60% of the people in Denver voted no.  You also heard 
me say that on four occasions that the people of Denver, including the Denver 
City Council on two occasions, have supported the ordinance that was passed by 
the Denver City Council so, in fact, I am responding to the will of the voters 
of the city and county of Denver.  Now, the other issue that you raised is that 
you said that you don't care about (attempted interruptions throughout by John) 
those individuals that are boycotting Denver and boycotting the rest of the 
state.  Some of us do, and it seems to me that we don't want to have people 
boycotting local businesses and state businesses.  Now, it may not have 
mattered to you that four to five conventions have cancelled.  It may not 
matter to you that a large organization is debating tomorrow and in the next 
few days whether to go to Colorado Springs for their convention, but I think 
from an economic point of view that many of these conventions and conferences 
and job relocations that people should come to Colorado and they also should 
come to Denver, so what I'm doing is representing the interest of the people of 
the city and county of Denver.

J - Well, I'll tell you what--right now the minority speaker of the house of 
representatives is going to introduce a resolution and use the government to 
try to back out, pound down, the vote of the people, and as a voter of this 
state, it just angers me.  We have voted.  We have made our statement.  I work 
in the hospitality industry.  I work in the industry.  I sell hotel rooms, and 
I know that you can lose 200 million dollars in a year just in the normal 
course of doing business, just in back and forth doing business.  I already 
know for a fact there's a lot of cancellations being blamed on Amendment 2 that 
are pure economic reasons.  They get a better room rate in Chicago so they go 
to Chicago.  Frankly, Mayor, I'm just disappointed in you, and I just wish 
you'd go back to Denver and not act like you speak for the rest of the people.

W - Well, I'm here speaking for the voters of Denver and also speaking--this 
trip was set up to promte the airport and to promote economic development, and 
since I've been here, the main issue that most people have wanted to talk about 
is Amendment 2.  Now, we have two ways to handle that; one is not address it 
at all, or I can speak about the issue as it pertains to the voters of my city, 
who have a different view obviously than you.

G - John, thank you for the call.  Let's go to Ann in New York City.  Hi, Ann.

A - Hi.  I think the last caller is a perfect example of why we need a boycott. 
There are a couple of points I'd like to make.  First of all, I live in New 
York but I'm someone who visits Colorado regularly a month every summer, and 
was planning to buy land there and retire there, but I'm a lesbian and I don't 
feel safe in Colorado anymore, and I won't go there as long as Amendment 2 is 
in force.  I think the caller from Colorado has misexplained the amendment.  
The amendment is not about special rights, it's about taking away my civil 
rights, and it means that if I did want to buy land in Colorado and someone 
didn't want to sell it to me because I'm a lesbian, they could get away with 
that.  That's what the amendment is all about.

F - I think that's a very good point.  That is the sort of thing that the 
amendment is about.  I would like to suggest, though, that boycotting Colorado 
has perhaps been an effective immediate strategy in terms of focusing 
attention on this issue, but this is a strategy that is not going to live very 
long in an effective way, and the reason I say that is because what's happening 
with the Colorado for Family Values group is happening all over this country.

A - Exactly.  That's why we need a boycott, because we can't let this go 
without comment.  We have to fight back immediately or it's going to pass in 
states all over this country.

F - It's going to be proposed in states all over this country now, and I think 
that focusing on only a boycott issue doesn't give us the strategy we need for 
a long-term battle against this sort of initiative.

A - We are certainly working on that long-term battle at the same tine, but 
we cannot let this heinous HEINOUS political move by the voters of Colorado to 
deprive a group of people of their civil rights go softly into the night, and 
I'm extremely disappointed in the mayor, who I respect enormously, and respect 
his support of our issues over the years.  I'm disappointed that he would fight 
this boycott, because we do know that boycotts do work.  And how we can put 
economic issues over human rights is a mystery to me.

W - Well,maybe one of the things you might want to do is get an equal 
protection ordinance for the state of New York.

A - I certainly want to, but at least New York has not deprived us of our civil 
rights, and the city of New York does have an antidiscrimiantion law.  And I 
think what we ssould all be fighting for is a federal civil rights law.

W - As does the city of Denver.

A - But now you're forbidden from enforcing it.

W - Well, we're enforcing it because we sued in court asking the court to, one, 
review the constitutionality of the amendment as it relates to both the 14th 
amendment as well as overturning the ordinance that was passed by Denver City 
Council as a home rule city.

A - I'm happy about the lawsuit, but I understand that's iffy at best and may 
take several years.  I am not sanguine about its chances.

G - Let me stop for a second.  We;re going to have to take a break for a 
second, but Linda, let me ask you, based on what Ann is saying is a boycott is 
effective, would be effective, and you're telling me that we need a general 
strategy to get your point of view,the point of view that both you and Ann have 
about this and that the mayor has about Amendment 2, but I think what Ann is 
saying is "Hey, this has worked.  This is a strategy. You guys don't have a 
strategy right now.  This worked in Arizona with Martin Luther King Day.  
Boycotts are effective, so until you come up with something, this is it."

A - And how can I feel safe going to Colorado? Hate crime reports are up 350% 
since the vote in November.  There's a guy who committed suicide over this.  
How can I as a lesbian feel safe in Colorado?  It just is not possible for me 
to even consider entering the state.

F - I'm not sure how you can feel safe in any place at this point.  The way 
that I feel about being in Colorado is that right now there is no place else on 
earth that I would rather be.  Because this is where the issue is being fought; 
this is where it's happening; this is where it's focused.

A - Well, it's happening everywhere.

F - It's happening in Colorado right now and that's where we're dealing with 
it.

G - I've got to deal with a break.  Ann, I thank you for the call.  We'll take 
a quick break and come back with more of your calls.  This is the Gil Gross 
Show.

                          Commercial break
















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