‘Pro-Family’ Initiative Is Rooted in Prejudice

With all of the serious problems facing Congress and the state Legislature, Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), and Assemblymen Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) and Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach) should have more to do than meddle in an Irvine issue that doesn’t concern them. Irvine is not even in the districts represented by Dornan, Dannemeyer or Ferguson, and Frizzelle represents only a part of the city.

But the conservative quartet has responded to an anti-homosexual call from a small conservative group in Irvine and lent their support to an effort to amend the city’s human rights ordinance. The initiative drive they so foolishly back, although cloaked as a “pro-family” approach, is rooted in homophobia and ignorant prejudice.

The ordinance was passed last August in an attempt to ensure equal rights for all residents. It prohibits discrimination in employment, educational institutions, housing, public service and public accommodations. Its goal is to eliminate all bias and the ordinance thus specifically outlaws discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, color, sex, age, marital status, physical handicap and sexual orientation.

All of the people who fit one or another of the categories covered by the ordinance have at some time or another been denied housing and jobs, and been harassed or even physically assaulted. And they all deserve all of the protection that law can provide. The initiative effort launched by the Irvine Values Coalition seeks to repeal the protection against bias on the basis of sexual orientation--as if the American system intended that people pick and choose among the types of discrimination that legally should be allowed.

Elected officials like Dornan, Dannemeyer, Ferguson and Frizzelle should know better. They are put into office to enact laws and protect the rights of all residents, not to become part of a prejudiced and misguided movement selectively seeking to restrict the rights of some.

The out-of-town lawmakers never should have signed the letter denouncing the Irvine ordinance as an attempt to “advance homosexuality” by espousing a “perverse life style.” In doing so, they are guilty of the very kind of discrimination the local law seeks to discourage. They have provided Irvine residents with the best example of why the ordinance is needed, as is, and the strongest reason for resisting any effort to change it.