Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 16:44:31 -0700 From: richter@eecs.berkeley.edu (Jean Richter) Subject: 6/26/97 P.E.R.S.O.N. Project news 1. CA: More on the defeat of AB101 ================================================================= VOTES - ROLL CALL MEASURE: AB 101 AUTHOR: Kuehl TOPIC: Education: sexual orientation: nondiscrimination. DATE: 06/03/97 LOCATION: ASM. FLOOR MOTION: AB 101 KUEHL THIRD READING (AYES 36. NOES 40.) (FAIL) AYES **** Alquist Aroner Bowen Brown Caldera Cardenas Davis Ducheny Escutia Figueroa Floyd Gallegos Hertzberg Honda Keeley Knox Kuehl Lempert Martinez Mazzoni Migden Murray Napolitano Ortiz Papan Perata Scott Shelley Strom-Martin Sweeney Thomson Torlakson Villaraigosa Vincent Wayne Wright NOES **** Ackerman Aguiar Alby Ashburn Baldwin Battin Baugh Bordonaro Bowler Brewer Campbell Cardoza Cunneen Firestone Frusetta Goldsmith Granlund Havice House Kaloogian Kuykendall Leach Leonard Margett McClintock Miller Morrissey Morrow Olberg Oller Pacheco Poochigian Prenter Pringle Richter Runner Takasugi Thompson Washington Woods ABSENT, ABSTAINING, OR NOT VOTING ********************************* Baca Machado Wildman Bustamante Although reconsideration is customarily granted to bills that do not receive enough votes to be outright killed in committee or on the floor, yesterday there was a call for a roll call vote on reconsideration of AB 101. This was an attempt prevent reconsideration from being granted to AB 101. Unfortunately, this attempt began to jeopardize other less controversial bills that normaly would have been automatically granted reconsideration. As a result, reconsideration of AB 101 was waived. This means the bill is dead for this session (as dead as any bill ever is in the Assembly. There is always some extraordinary means in which you can wave the rules and resurrect a bill, but you need a lot more support in order to do that than AB 101 has or is likely to have in the next year). The Dignity for All Students Act can be reintroduced in the 1999-2000 Session. In the meantime, we need to organize follow-up visits with key members who voted against the bill or abstained. We also need to organize at the local level to protect gay and lesbian youth from discrimination by adding sexual orientation to our local school districts non-discrimination policy. I'll send out an action alert soon on who we need to thank for their support of AB 101 and who needs a "shame on you." Thank you for all of your hard work on AB 101, without it we would not have made it this far. We got closer this time than ever before and maybe next session we'll actually have a Democratic governor who will sign the bill when we bring it back. Thank you again, Jennifer ******************************************************************************* Jennifer Richard , Consultant, Office of Assemblymember Kuehl, State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814 tel 916-327-3129, fax 916-324-4454. To find out who your Assemblymember is or for info on a bill, check out the Assembly Home page http://www.assembly.ca.gov/ ******************************************************************************* Subject: CA: Legislative Update and LIFE Lobby Action Alert, 06/04/97 Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 11:32:11 -0700 June 4, 1997 For Immediate Release Contact: Ellen McCormick, Legislative Advocate LIFE: California's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and HIV/AIDS Lobby CALIFORNIA LEGISLATIVE UPDATE: The Good News and the Bad News The good news first. AB 1059, Assembly Member Carole Migden's measure to require health maintenance organizations, as well as other health coverage providers, to offer domestic partner health coverage as an option to small employers - passed the Assembly floor with bipartisan support and is moving to the State Senate. The bad news. AB 101, Assembly Member Sheila Kuehl's measure to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in California's public schools - failed on the Assembly floor after an hour of debate. The debate was both empowering and offensive. Assembly Member Peter Frusetta (R-Tres Pinos) peppered the debate with his 'expert testimony' on his experience with homosexuality - that of watching hormonally imbalance heifers on his farm that behaved "as bulls" toward other heifers. All in all, he concluded, it was "unnatural." Empowering testimony came only from Democratic members of the Assembly. Such members as Jack Scott (D-Altadena), Rod Wright (D-South Central Los Angeles), Fred Keeley (D-Boulder Creek), Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), Kevin Murray (D-Los Angeles), Kerry Mazzoni (D-Novato), Diane Martinez (D-Monterey Park), Mike Honda (D-San Jose), Kevin Shelley (D-San Francisco) and Don Perata (D-Alameda) spoke eloquently and compassionately on behalf of gay and lesbian youth. SCRIPPS McCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE, June 5, 1997 SYNDICATED COLUMN DAN WALTERS: California assembly mixed on gay rights SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- It was near-midnight, the state Assembly had been in session for nearly 12 straight hours, working through a mountain of bills, and lawmakers were acting more than a little goofy. When Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, arose late Tuesday night to seek a vote on legislation barring sexual orientation discrimination in public schools, however, silence fell over the chamber. As a political issue, gay rights exists in the nether regions where deep philosophical conviction and crass political calculation are intertwined -- a truism reflected in the passion-filled, hour-long debate that ensued. Lawmakers on both sides of the issue quoted from the Bible, invoked the spirits of Founding Fathers and related personal experiences. Peter Frusetta, a Republican rancher/legislator from the Central Coast, delivered a bewildering monologue about lesbian heifers before declaring his opposition. And at the back of the chamber, staffers and reporters wagered among themselves on the outcome. When the vote was taken, however, it wasn't even close. Kuehl, the Legislature's first openly homosexual member, needed 41 votes but garnered just 36 as seven Democrats either opposed the measure or refused to vote -- including Speaker Cruz Bustamante. All Republicans voted "no." Kuehl's measure, AB 101, is one of a series of gay rights bills to hit the Legislature this year, sparking an intense lobbying and public relations war between pro- and anti-gay rights groups. And the outcome so far is a very mixed bag. The struggle has focused on a handful of Democrats from relatively conservative districts whose votes would be decisive. The anti-gay rights forces flooded the districts with direct mail and church-centered appeals, trying to persuade the swing Democrats that siding with gay groups would be politically perilous. One of the targets was freshman Assemblyman Scott Wildman, who holds what what had been a long-time Republican seat in the San Fernando Valley. The Capitol Resource Institute, an anti-gay rights lobbying group, had identified Wildman as a decisive vote and conservative churches publicly demanded that he oppose the measures. Wildman refused to vote on AB 101 Tuesday night, but he did vote for AB 257, which those on both sides of the issue consider to be the single most important of the measures. And AB 257, which would beef up enforcement of state laws against sexual orientation discrimination, was approved with the bare minimum 41 votes. Later, Wildman admitted to ambivalent feelings about the gay rights issue, both personally and politically. "My district is a very mixed district," he said. Another targeted Democrat, San Joaquin County farmer Mike Machado, also ducked AB 101 but provided the 41st vote for AB 257 in the final round of balloting, which enraged Lou Sheldon of the Family Rights Coalition. Sheldon said Machado reneged on a promise not to back AB 257 because of arm-twisting from Democratic leaders. "I don't think I reneged," Machado said, indirectly acknowledging that he was pressured by leaders on the bill, carried by Democratic floor leader Antonio Villaraigosa. "I think we won more than we lost," gay rights lobbyist Ellen McCormick said Wednesday. But in addition to Kuehl's measure dealing with gay students, the gay rights coalition also suffered a setback when two bills dealing with adoption by same-sex and/or unmarried couples were dropped without a vote -- an acknowledgment that support was lacking. An African-American freshman from Compton, Carl Washington, played the key role in scuttling the gay adoption measures. Washington, a minister, called homosexuality "a straightforward moral issue to me." (Dan Walters is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee in California.) SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, June 5, 1997 (E-MAIL: chronletters@sfgate.com) (http://www.sfgate.com) Assembly Rejects Ban On Gay Bias in Schools Robert B. Gunnison, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau Sacramento A bill to bar discrimination against gays and lesbians in public education was defeated in the Assembly early yesterday after a Republican rancher invoked images of ``heifer hermaphrodites'' while his colleagues used the Bible to argue for and against the measure. For two hours, members of the Assembly displayed their personal ideologies, moralities, stereotypical thinking, and religious beliefs before voting 36 to 40 to defeat the bill by Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles. As one of two lesbians in the Assembly, Kuehl said she was ``proud'' of her colleagues for the post-midnight debate that touched on the Old Testament and the behavior of cattle on a ranch in San Benito County. Her measure, which may be debated again, would add sexual orientation to the list of reasons for which schools cannot discriminate in classroom activities, athletics or employment. ``If a boy and a girl hold hands, they're fine,'' Kuehl said. ``If two girls hold hands in school, they're in trouble, and they could be in physical trouble.'' One of the odder speeches of the evening was the rambling discourse of Assemblyman Peter Frusetta, R-Los Pinos, who began, ``Well, I've seen thousands and thousands of cattle . . .'' ``In my lifetime, I've probably seen three and, at the top, four that had the hormonal imbalance of being odd,'' he said. ``We called them the heifer hermaphrodites . . . They must have some hormonal imbalance that makes them shy away from bulls and take up with other heifers, just like a bull would. ``The cowboys in their long days on the range will get a joke out of it because it's so odd,'' he went on. If Frusetta had a point, he wasn't sharing it with his colleagues. Instead, he moved into a lecture about human anatomy and the dangers of friendships turning into intimate relationships. Assemblyman Rod Wright, D- Los Angeles, objected to opponents of the bill citing the Bible as a rationale for fighting homosexuality. He said Jesus did not mention it in the New Testament, and the Ten Commandments, ``which were given to Moses on Mount Sinai, carved in stone, do not mention homosexuality.'' ``I don't think anybody here can say they don't fall short of the glory of God,'' he said. Assemblyman Bill Morrow, R- Oceanside, criticized the bill for failing to include a definition of sexual orientation. ``It could certainly mean one's sexual desires,'' Morrow said. ``Think of that for a moment with pedophiles or necrophilia or transvestism. . . . This is a real problem with the bill.'' Assemblywoman Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, said, ``I don't know what is hiding in the recesses of some of my colleagues' minds. It is astoundingly beyond describable proportions.'' ``Why is this so threatening?'' asked Migden, a lesbian. ``Why is this so off-putting?'' ======================================================================== Jean Richter -- richter@eecs.berkeley.edu The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project (Public Education Regarding Sexual Orientation Nationally) CHECK OUT OUR INFO-LOADED WEB PAGE AT: http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/