From: WAND_M@gold.colorado.edu
Subject: NYC joins boycott of Colo.
Followup-To: amend2-discuss@cs.colorado.edu
Originator: doherty@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 20:45:14 GMT

Despite Webb friendship, message must be sent, Dinkins says
By Bill McBean, Denver Post Staff Writer
December 9, 1992

NEW YORK - Mayor David Dinkins yesterday joined the widening boycott of 
Colorado to protest Amendment 2, ignoring a personal plea from a longtime 
friend, Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.

Following the lead of Atlanta and Philadelphia, Dinkins announced that no city 
money will be spent on travel to Colorado until the anti-gay rights amendment 
is repealed.

A fourth city, Boston, has banned the use of city money for Colorado "goods and 
services."

Dinkins' action came after a 90-minute lunch meeting, at which Webb asked him 
not to join the spreading national boycott.

"I'm disappointed at the travel boycott but also, I'm not surprised," Webb said 
afterward.

Winding up his two-day trip to visit New York media, Webb again appealed to 
groups boycotting Colorado to redirect their efforts to overturning laws like 
Amendment 2.

Protection for gays, Webb said, "is a national issue, not just an issue for 
Colorado."

Amendment 2 wiped out ordinances in Denver, Boulder and Aspen that protected 
gays from discrimination.  It also prohibits any such ordinances from being 
adopted in the future.

In announcing his city's ban on travel to Colorado, Dinkins called himself one 
of the "earliest and strongest" proponents of New York City's longstanding 
gay-rights ordinance.

"While the boycott by itself will not solve the problems caused by the enemies 
of justice and fairness, we must send a signal that there is something wrong 
and unacceptable," he said.

However, Dinkins rejected a gay city councilman's suggestion that he prohibit 
the city from doing business with Colorado companies.  Councilman Tom Duane had 
asked Dinkins to cancell all city contracts with Colorado vendors--a chunk of 
business that exceeds $650,000 a year, according to the New York City 
comptroller.

Dinkins began his attack on Amendment 2 last week, when he and Atlanta Mayor 
Maynard Jackson recommended the U.S. Conference of Mayors move its annual 
meeting out of Colorado Springs next summer.  The gathering is expected to draw 
1,200 people.

The Conference of Mayors' executive board will decide next month whether to 
move the convention.  If it stays in Colorado Springs, Dinkins said, he will 
not come.

Dinkins was not alone in ignoring Webb's plea.

Just hours after Village Voice reporters met with Webb yesterday, the newspaper 
came out with a scathing editorial, "Boycott Colorado!"  The paper was one of 
14 media stops on Webb's two-day spin thorugh New York to pitch the Colorado 
Rockies and the new airport, and to try to stem the boycott.

The editorial claims since Colorado voters passed the amendment 53-to-47 
percent on Nov. 3, "Nearly every gay or lesbian bar in (Denver) has been 
disrupted by bigots who beat patrons in the parking lot or break the windows 
of their cars." 

As Webb made his rounds yesterday, he again was hounded by members of the 
radical group Lesbian Avengers.

Webb had planned to go from New York to Toronto to promote the new airport, but 
he decided last night to return to Denver instead.  "He just felt he needed to 
get back sooner," said press aide Briggs Gamblin.  "Not only had he been gone 
for this trip, but for the Arsenio (Hall) trip before that."

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