In their hunger to take back the White House, the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons have swallowed the mellow prose of Texas scripted for them by George W.’s handlers–but at the state level, the antigay hate campaigns of the Christian right are picking up steam. “In 2000 there have been and are more gay-bashing initiatives on the ballot than ever before,” points out David Fleischer, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force organizer for state and local politics.
In Nevada, an amendment to the state Constitution banning same-sex marriage, backed by the Southern Baptists (who have pledged $1 million to pass it) and the Mormon Church, won 60 percent approval in the latest polls. In Nebraska, an even worse measure bans civil unions and even legal status for domestic partnerships, which threatens benefits afforded to same-sex couples by private companies doing business there (like Qwest and Wells Fargo). In Maine, the Christian Civic League (a Gary Bauer spinoff) and the Christian Coalition are spending heavily to defeat ratification of a gay civil rights law already passed by the legislature. The progay forces are woefully underfunded in all three states.
But the most critical battle is in Oregon, which has seen forty antigay initiatives (four statewide, the rest local) in the past twelve years. This year’s Measure 9 is a viciously broad version of the “no promo homo” amendments Jesse Helms has been trying to pass in Washington for years: It bans public school “instruction of behaviors relating to homosexuality and bisexuality…that encourages, promotes or sanctions such behavior.” Sponsored by professional antigay crusader Lon Mabon and his Oregon Citizens Alliance–who were behind the previous referendums–this thought-police measure would have a devastating effect on the ability of the state’s schools and colleges to teach about HIV or antigay discrimination and menaces the livelihood of openly gay teachers. Mabon makes it quite clear: He has said that the measure is designed to defund “any place that there is a cultural diversity program or multiculturalism or AIDS education [in which] homosexuality is presented as being normal and acceptable…. Any AIDS education like what occurred at Portland State University or at the local level could not be done. Any speakers that come in, if they are homosexuals, they could not stand up in front of a class or an assembly and talk about a pro-homosexual lifestyle.”
Mabon-sponsored referendums aimed at banning civil rights laws protecting gays were defeated in 1992 and 1994, but it will not be so easy this time. In previous years the gay-bashing measures were the only controversial ones on the ballot, and a broad-based progressive coalition fought back effectively; this year, there are twenty-six different ballot questions, and the official guide mailed to every voter is 400 pages, the size of a telephone book. Moreover, there are seven other initiatives of major concern to progressives: two antilabor “paycheck protection” measures; three on tax and budget cutting; and two anti-environmental proposals.
“It’s very shrewd of the right wing,” says Paddy McGuire, who ran the Clinton campaign in Oregon in 1992 and 1996 and is now chief of staff to the secretary of state. “For $100,000 you can put damn well anything on the ballot–9 is the only one of these measures where signatures were mostly gotten by volunteers, while the others were gathered by paid workers at $1.50 a signature. It’s going to take around a million bucks to defeat each one of them–that’s $5 to $6 million we won’t spend to elect progressives to office.” The strategy to sap progressive energies through referendums was the brainchild of Bill Sizemore, the 1998 Republican candidate for governor. Sizemore has turned his strategy into a lucrative business: He runs Oregon Taxpayers United–which is funded by wealthy GOP conservatives and the oldtime timber barons and fronts for the ballot measures–and on the side he runs a signature-collection firm that rakes it in for petition drives.
“We’re stretched thin,” worries Josh Kardon, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden’s chief of staff. “The governor [liberal Democrat John Kitzhaber] is tied up fighting off the two measures aimed at his budget. Wyden’s tied up trying to raise money for state legislative races–we’re in spitting distance of taking back one or both houses. Because we’re so diluted, trying to explain in a short time why Measure 9 is bad for kids is going to be tough.”
All the more so because “we have less than half the staff the campaign that defeated the 1994 antigay referendum had, when they spent $1.7 million,” says No on 9 campaign manager Kathleen Sullivan; by mid-September the group had raised only $300,000. Both the Christian Coalition and the Family Research Council are putting major resources into 9’s passage. The No campaign does have strong support from the PTA as well as the state AFL-CIO, whose president, Tim Nesbitt, points to “an alliance between Lon Mabon and paycheck protection, which the OCA has endorsed.” As the state’s leading Democratic pollster, Lisa Grove, points out, “Passage of 9 would have implications beyond Oregon–if they can win here, they’ll try it elsewhere.” Money for TV ads is desperately needed. To contribute, make out checks to: No on 9, PO Box 40625, Portland, OR 97240; or log on at www.noon9.org.
