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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 18, 1994)
10 ▼ n o ve m b « r 18, 1 8 8 4 ▼ ju s t ou t ELECTION ’94 “Everywhere that gay rights was a prominent campaign issue we won. Anti-gay ballot initiatives went down in Oregon and Idaho , despite the fact that the Christian Coalition dumped hundreds of thousands of its voters' guides throughout that region — 650,000 voters' pamphlets were dropped in Oregon urging voters to back Measure 13 and it still failed. ” — Douglas Hattaway Continued from previous pane The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund also be lieves the election was a fruitful one for gay men and lesbians. It says 12 of the 17 openly gay anG lesbian candidates it backed this election won—a 75 percent success rate. “Each of our candidates won two races,” says Victory Fund Deputy Director Kathleen DeBold “One against their opponents; the other against the radical right’s distorted image of gay men and lesbians.” She adds, “Our openly gay candidates won because their personal and community values are consistent with those of the average American family—values like hard work, responsibility, and respect for others.” The fund’s 12 winners are Will Fitzpatrick, Rhode Island Senate; Cal Anderson, Washington Senate; Sheila Kuehl, California Assembly; Ken Cheuvront, Arizona House of Representatives; Tim Van Zandt, Missouri House of Representa tives; Portland’s George Eighmey and Eugene’s Cynthia Wooten, Oregon House of Representa tives; Susan Leal and Tom Ammiano, San Fran cisco Board of Supervisors; Bonnie Dumanis, San Diego City Court; Teri Schwartz, Los Angeles Superior Court; and Tom Chiola, Cook County (111.) Court. Also of special interest to the gay and lesbian community nationwide: Openly gay U.S. Reps. Gerry Studds and Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Wisconsin Assemblywoman Tammy Baldwin, Texas state Rep. Glen Maxey, Minnesota state Rep. Karen Clark, Maine state Sen. Dale McCormick, New York state Assemblywoman Deb Glick, and Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin all won re-election bids According to Hattaway, nearly all of the 138 House members who are cosponsors of the Em ployment Non-Discrimination Act, a federal bill which would extend protections in employment on the basis of sexual orientation, were re-elected; in the Senate, all 13 of the bill’s 32 cosponsors who were up for re-election won their bids. “So we really haven’t lost much ground in terms of congressional sponsorship,” says Hattaway, who readily admits it will be more difficult to pass ENDA during the 104th Congress because, thanks to the midterm elections, Repub licans now control both houses of Congress. That means that Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who is a staunch backerof gay and lesbian rights legislation and chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, (which is considering ENDA), will be displaced as chair by Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas. Kennedy is a chief sponsor of ENDA and has a perfect HRCF voting record; Kassebaum is not a Senate sponsor and has a 20 percent HRCF voting record. One ENDA House sponsor who was ousted is Jolene Unsoeld (D-Wash.), who lost her re-elec tion bid to Republican challenger Linda Smith According to a report from People for the Ameri can Way, a national organization that monitors right-wing activity, Smith received support from “religious conservatives [and] campaigned hard on cultural issues and family values.” The report quotes Smith as saying she opposed a human- rights ordinance because citizens would have to fight “to keep homosexuals from teaching in our Christian schools.” “We’re glad we didn’t lose many ENDA spon sors,” says Hattaway, “but there’s no doubt we’ll have our work cut out for us with a Republican- controlled Congress.” hifting from difficulties to disappointments, voters in Alachua County, Fla., approved two ballot measures. One, which was approved by an estimated 59 percent of voters, alters the county ’ s charter to prohibit the inclusion of the phrase “sexual orientation”; the second, which was ap proved by 57 percent of the electorate, repeals an ordinance which had added sexual orientation pro tections to a local human rights act. Openly gay candidate Tony Miller lost his bid to become California’s secretary of state. Karen Burstein, a lesbian who sought to become the S