by Diana Schiefelbein

Free Press staff

This flurry of anti-gay activity must look awful familiar to those who lived in Seattle in 1978. Back then, two Seattle police officers, Dennis Falk and David Estes, led a campaign to overturn the sexual orientation provisions of Seattle's fair employment and open housing ordinances. Their group, Save Our Moral Ethics, collected more than 18,000 signatures, enough to put their Initiative 13 on the fall ballot that year.

Expectedly, the initiative attracted strident opponents and supporters. When SOME received $3,000 from Protect America's Children, a similar organization, the anti-13 group was given $2,000 by Hugh Hefner's Playboy Foundation. Both groups had their finances audited. The Church Council of Greater Seattle's strong stance against Initiative 13 drew a lawsuit from Ray Royal, a former King County Superior Court judge, who accused the council of "outrageous conduct." Royal argued that the council's position transgressed restrictions on political activities by non-profit organizations.

In the end, Initiative 13 lost, though it pulled 38 percent of the Seattle vote. If it had passed, homosexuals could have been denied housing and jobs on a landlord or employer's whim. An accusation of homosexuality could have endangered anyone's job or home.

Falk, co-chair of SOME, said the initiative failed because it was ahead of the times - rather than behind.

"I think we may have attempted to solve a problem a year or two in advance of when we should have put it on the ballot," the Nov. 8, 1978, Seattle Times quoted Falk as saying. "Maybe we should have let these homosexuals carry on with their recruiting of our children for another year or so. As they flaunt their deviant behavior in the face of the general public, the public will become concerned and we'll get it on the ballot again."

Bigotry, Inc.
Seattle was not the first city to have its gay rights ordinances challenged. In 1977, Florida orange-industry spokesperson and fundamentalist Christian Anita Bryant led a movement against a law in Dade County (Miami), Fla., that would have granted homosexuals protection against discrimination. Her group, Protect America's Children, won overwhelmingly. The victory helped start a wave of anti-gay measures throughout the U.S., with the anti-gay movement recording wins in St. Paul, Minn.; Wichita, Kan.; and Eugene, Ore.

Seattle, however, was the first city in the nation to defeat a challenge to an anti-discrimination law already on the books. Charles Brydon, a leader in the anti-13 group, Citizens to Retain Fair Employment, said 15 years ago of the initiative's defeat, "Anita Bryant and her whole effort have reached the end of the road."

That prediction has already been proven wrong. SOME, PAC and similar groups are still being driven by a belief steeped in neo-Christian orthodoxy and "family values." In 1992, the Oregon Citizens Alliance tried for a

bigger victory. Instead of aiming for a city ordinance with limited jurisdiction and power, the OCA tried to pass a statewide, anti-gay initiative, Measure 9.

The measure, dubbed by the OCA as the "No Special Rights Measure," would have denied homosexuals many of the same rights afforded to other minorities and women. Oregon voters rejected it, though not by a comfortable margin. But neither the OCA nor the Citizens' Alliance of Washington have given up.

Some cities in Washington have ordinances protecting gays and lesbians against discrimination, but the state

as yet does not have such a law. If a state law passes, those who discriminate against homosexuals likely would face much heavier punishment than what is called for in local ordinances.

Washington's Liberal Image Put to the Test
Brydon, who fought Initiative 13 in 1978, now heads the group Hands Off Washington. "They're really afraid that a statewide statute will be passed," he said of CAW. In the last legislative session, "it failed to get out of a Senate committee by only one vote. This issue is not going to go away. It will reappear again and again until it passes."

CAW chair Robert Larimer said, "Washington is only responding to 17 years of activity by left-wing groups trying to get gays a privileged minority status. This is the first time anybody's tried to make behavior a criterion for minority, and it will open up a real Pandora's box. If you're black, you can't change that. The same is not true of homosexual behavior."

Larimer's group plans to file the statewide initiative next January. Because of the huge turnout in last fall's election, CAW will need to collect a whopping 185,000 signatures in order to get the initiative on the November ballot. (The number of signatures needed is tied to the voter turnout in the previous statewide election.)

Both CAW and Hands off Washington see the other group as being more powerful than itself. Brydon claims the religious right is better organized, better heeled and has televangelists to deliver its message to millions. Larimer, however, contends that gay groups out-finance them "10 to 1," and warned the religious right will "attempt to divert people from the issues, talk about hate mongering and Nazis."

Brydon said he was encouraged that gays are benefiting, for the most part, from a country that is more tolerant than in 1978, and a larger grassroots movement. (In 1991, Editor & Publisher counted more than 125 gay newspapers in the U.S., with a total circulation of more than a million.) Larimer, however, also said his group would benefit from a more receptive pool of voters and a stronger grassroots movement.

"A lot of the people in this movement have never done anything political before," Larimer said. "They're talking with their neighbors about this. Opponents will get shrill and hysterical, but all we're really offering is a chance for people to vote one way or the other."

However unsuccessful the Larimers and Mabons of today are, few expect their ideological descendants to be deterred by what they may see as only small bumps on the road to a homogeneous society. This year's petition drives are part of a larger crusade. Washington and Oregon are only two battlefields.

We want to extend thanks to Free Press staffer and recent UW graduate Diana Schiefelbein, who just landed an internship at the Chicago Sun-Times. We wish her the best in her career.

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Contents on this page were published in the June, 1993 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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