From: WAND_M@gold.colorado.edu
Subject: Gay ski week leaders vow to hold event in Aspen despite boycott
Followup-To: amend2-discuss@cs.colorado.edu
Originator: doherty@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 20:37:57 GMT

By Michael Booth
Denver Post Staff Writer
December 8, 1992

Aspen leaders organizing their annual gay ski week are holding out against the 
Amendment 2 boycott, and say the event will continue even if it draws only half 
the usual 4,000 skiers.

Aspen gay leaders, however, remain one of the few groups resisting the boycott, 
as the ban yesterday picked up support from a new Colorado Springs coalition 
and the city of Seattle.

Last week, one Los Angeles travel agent who bring skiers to the January 
celebration said she was boycotting the event, and canceled a fund-raiser she 
produces that would have provided $60,000 to the Aspen gay community.

Boycott Colorado, the main boycott organizer in the state, also has called for 
gay skiers to stay away from Aspen.

But Terry White, chairman of the Aspen Lesbian and Gay Community, said 
yesterday the ski week is still on, and there is no sentiment within the local 
community to cancel.  "We're still expecting a large crowd.  Our community 
voted 3 to 1: No on 2.  We feel a boycott would alienate what support we do 
have," White said.

Most plans unchanged
Most of the large out-of-state groups that bring skiers to Aspen also are 
sticking to their plans to come this year, but will join the boycott for 1994 
if Amendment 2 still exists.

A few individual skiers have canceled, said Ron Erickson, a San Diego travel 
agent who coordinates plans for 175 gay skiers and has contacted clubs in other 
cities.

"My expectation is it will not be as big as in previous years," Erickson 
said.  "Next year we won't do a trip, and no club I know will."

A Colorado Springs coalition of gay and lesbian groups, meanwhile, voted to 
support a boycott and to form an umbrella group called "Ground Zero" in 
reference to both the city's long military history and its status as birthplace 
of Amendment 2.

While some Colorado gay and lesbian leaders still fight the boycott as harmful 
to their cause, the Colorado Springs group is evidence local sentiment is 
bulding for the ban, gay leaders said.

Colorado for Family Values, which sponsored Amendment 2, no longer is 
commenting publicly on the amendment or controversy.

Seattle boycott expected
Nationally, boycott leaders picked up support from Seattle, where the city 
council is expected to approve an official travel ban to Colorado next week, 
and Mayor Norm Rice said he backed the boycott.

Rice is a Denver native and friend of Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, but he 
believes economic presure is the best way to overturn Amendment 2, said his 
legal counsel, Anne Levinson.

She indicated Rice would support efforts by New York Mayor David Dinkins and 
others to cancel a U.S. Conference of Mayors convention in Colorado next year.

Also yesterday, the Manhattan Transfer singing group said it would donate 
proceeds from two Fort Collins concerts next week to the legal coalition 
fighting Amendment 2 in Denver District Court.

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