NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/soc/motss/54269

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-30 | 5.5 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!att!drutx!druhi!kpm
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Malloy (DoD #106))
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: The Boycott, and Colorado Happenings
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 31 Dec 92 00:08:45 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Lines: 97

in article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Bob Donahue) says:
>
>     All well and good --- I fail to see why then, that so
> many Coloradoans and Colorado businesses are spending more time
> telling us why we shouldn't penalize them for CO:2 than they
> are screaming to the power that be to have it removed.

BBC, I couldn't agree with you more.  People who don't live here only
see Colorado as "a big square state out west" that did a horribly
hateful thing on election day.  No one should expect out-of-staters to
distinguish between the different parts of this state.  Colorado passed
Amendment #2, not just specific areas of the state.  Hell, Denver
contributed 81,000 yes votes (121,000 no).

A group in Aspen raised about $50K to run ads around the country saying
that tolerance and acceptance is the rule in Aspen, and all are
welcome.  Well, they took a lot of flack from a lot of people -- that
money should have been used to fight the amendment, not fight the
boycott.  If people had used as much energy to fight the passage of the
amendment as they are using to fight the boycott, who knows, maybe it
wouldn't have passed in the first place.

I refuse to do business in any county that voted yes (which is a bit
tough, since I work in one of those counties) unless that business is
minority owned and/or operated or has demonstrated clear and public
opposition to Amendment #2.  I don't support a boycott of the state,
since I'm not about to drive to Wyoming for groceries, but I don't
oppose it either.  I will say that if I didn't live hear, I'd be
boycotting, and I did do most of my, er, obligatory year-end gift
purchasing at Nordstrom in Baltimore.

> ...I have not heard anything other than the
> complaint issued by the city of Boulder that was co-signed
> by Martina Navratolova.

This was _much_ more than a "complaint".  The cities of Denver,
Boulder, and Aspen, along with about 10 individuals, and other entities
of the state (e.g. Boulder Valley Public Schools), the ACLU, and others
have filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court to have Colo #2 declared
unconstitutional.  Martina is one of the plantiffs.  The case is known
as "Evans v.  Romer".  They've also filed for a TRO to stop Amendment
#2 from becoming part of our constitution.  The grounds of this case
are very broad.  They are based on the 14th Amendment, the 1st
Amendment, case-law from "Brown v. Board of Education, and other
cases.  The Amendment is also being challenged on Colorado
Constitutional grounds, although it is not clear to me that one can
have a section of the Colorado Constitution declared unconstitutional
according to the _state_ constitution.  Federal yes, state, I dunno.
An organization called the Colorado Legal Initiatives Project is
leading the lesbian/gay part of this lawsuit.

State Rep. Sam Williams (D-Breckenridge) is going to file a bill to
refer a constitutional amemdment onto the 1993 ballot that would repeal
Amendment 2 in toto.  State Senator Bill Owens (R-Aurora) (I seem to
recall) is going to file a bill to refer a constitutional amendment
that would ban discrimination in housing or employment on "irrelevant
factors", whatever that means (who decides what's relevent?).  For an
amendment to referred to the voters, it has to pass 2/3 of both houses
of the Legislature.

The Colorado lesbian and gay community is in chaos.  There has been
lots of finger pointing, and blameing, mostly at the main organization
that fought Amendment 2, EPOColorado.  It's pretty ugly to watch all of
these screamers and persons with axes to grind -- most didn't do
anything to defeat the amendment except (hopefully) vote.  There have
been numerous "community meetings" where there has been lots of
knashing of teeth, ranting, venting, and pushing of individual agendas,
but people have come away with nothing to do.  There's yet another
meeting on Jan 10.  I have low expectations for that meeting.  I hope
something constructive comes out of it, but I suspect it will be yet
another round of "I didn't get to do this" and "Why didn't you do that"
bashing of EPOColorado.

EPOColorado has become Equality Colorado and is going to move forward.
They've transformed themselves from a campaign to an educational
organization.  They've built the largest statewide coalition of people
this state has ever seen, and they're going to build on that coalition
so that, maybe as early in 1994, we (meaning Coloradans) will try to
repeal Amendment #2.

It is naive to believe that we could do it any sooner -- we need to
turn around 100,000 voters (mostly in suburban Denver, in Pueblo,
Ft. Collins, Greeley, and Grand Junction -- Colorado Springs is near
impossible), get 70,000 signatures on petitions (unless we can get
the legislature to refer the repeal), raise $1M (that's million, folks),
and run a campaign that has learned from the successes, mistakes and
strategic errors made in the '92 campaign.

More later -- I've yet to write an article describing "what happened"
from my point of view.

                        Kevin

Kevin Malloy  [e-mail]                DoD #106  1991 BMW K75RT
633 E. 11th Ave.      __
Denver, CO  80203     \/   With Liberty and Justice for all, NO EXCEPTIONS
[phone]                                                    Un-Do #2