>Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 17:52:28 -0800 >From: bjb@macsch.com (Bryan J. Blumberg) >Subject: LAT Editorial, 12/19/93 Charlie Zweig of GLAAD/LA got Ron Buckmire's request to post this editorial, but he doesn't have Internet access. So, he posted it to the GLAAD/LA bulletin board and asked me to hand it of to the QRD. --Bryan Los Angeles Times Editorial December 19, 1993 THE REAL LEGAL ISSUE IN COLORADO If gays can be excluded from basic protections, so can anyone else. A Colorado judge's ruling last week permenantly blocking implementation of that state's anti-gay law was of course the correct one. This case made headlines because of a dangerous principle, one that drew support from a majority of Colorado's voters at the polls last year, and, later, from lawyers for the state: namely; that the civil rights of some individuals can be comfortably be inferior to those guaranteed to other individuals. Such a notion, in this democracy, is untenable and insupportable. Colorado's District Judge Jeffrey Bayless ruled unconstitutional Amendment 2, the controversial measure that would have banned state and local laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. He also made permanent his earlier injunction blocking the law from taking effect, saying that Amendment 2 "violates the fundamental right of an identifiable group to participate in the political process." Lawyers for the state plan to appeal the ruling to the Colorado Supreme Court. Amendment 2 does not aim at prevening affirmative "special" protections for gay men and lesbians; its goal is more basic than that. It seeks to diminishexplicit guarantees of EQUAL protection that apply to every American, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. The basic civil rights of gays, like those of any minority group, simply cannot be voted away by the majority. In ballotting on measures similar to Amendment 2 in other states and localities, many Americans seem to understand this fundamental principle. Although voters last month banned gay rights protections in Cincinnati and repealed them in Lewiston, Me., they turned down such measures in Portmouth, N.H. Civil rights protection for gays now exist in some form in eight states and 75 cities--including Los Angeles--and counties nationwide. Those communities realize that the issue at stake is not just whether gay men and lesbians shoule be protected from discrimination. Rather it is: If gays can be excluded from protections, so can anyone else. The same fundemental principle also animates the debate over gays in the military. In recent months, concerns about equality and non- discrimination prompted U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter in Los Angeles and judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to challenge the Clinton Administration's restrictions on openly gay men and lesbians serving in the military. However, the U.S. Supreme Court since has overruled both courts, clearing the way for imposition of the Administration's "don't ask, don't tell policy, pending a lower court trial on the underlying constitutional issues. The policy--barring service by openly gay persons but prohibiting officers from questioning recruits about their sexual orientation--still faces the constitutional test. And, like Colorado's Amendment 2, it faces a formidable constitutional obstacle. ======================================== Bryan J. Blumberg, The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation 815 Colorado Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90041-1777 (213) 259-4914, bjb@macsch.com