Civil Rights Chief Urged Not to Attend Anti-Gay Gathering

The leader of a congressional subcommittee on civil rights has urged the nation’s top civil rights official to withdraw from an Orange County symposium sponsored by an organization dedicated to fighting minority status for homosexuals.

Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose) urged William Allen, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, not to represent the commission at any events on topics outside the scope of the commission’s jurisdiction, which he said includes only race, color, religion, sex, age, handicap or national origin.

“Your planned appearance at this symposium appears to be outside the scope of the commission’s jurisdiction and is an inappropriate use of limited Commission resources,” Edwards said in an Oct. 3 letter to Allen.

”. . . The commission’s statute makes no provision for the study of sexual orientation,” wrote Edwards, who is chairman of the House subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights, which monitors the commission.

An aide to Allen said Wednesday that the controversial black conservative, appointed chairman of the commission in 1988 by then-President Reagan, will still appear at the symposium on “Homosexuality and Public Policy Implications” sponsored Friday and Saturday by the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition. Members of the coalition led a protest against a gay pride festival in Santa Ana in September.

John Eastman, special assistant to Allen, said the commission chairman plans to deliver a speech titled, “Blacks, Animals and Homosexuals: What is a Minority?” at the Saturday meeting.

In July, Edwards also wrote to Allen trying to dissuade him from placing Operation Rescue, the anti-abortion organization, on the commission’s agenda. Allen sought to have the commission request that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate Operation Rescue’s charges of police brutality during abortion clinic blockades. The commission voted not to make the request.

The symposium has prompted vigorous protests from gay-rights organizations. After an intense letter-writing campaign by gay-rights activists, one Orange County hotel canceled the symposium.

The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, said he will hold a news conference today to reveal the location of the symposium and explain why a request by a gay-rights organization to speak will be turned down.

Sheldon chided Edwards for the implication in his letter to Allen that “this whole issue of sexual orientation is not to be within the confines of civil rights.”

“If that’s the case,” Sheldon said, “all the civil rights sexual orientation ordinances are for the birds. I can’t believe the man has put his foot in his mouth so far.”

The coalition contends that homosexuality is a behavior that is learned and can be changed and, therefore, is undeserving of minority status.

Gay rights groups have angrily rejected those claims.

“We believe the evidence is that it is not behavior-based and, therefore, the premise of their conference is incorrect and inappropriate,” said Kevin Farrell, board member of the Orange County Visibility League, a gay-rights organization, which he said plans to protest the conference on Saturday.

“We think it’s shameful that someone of his stature would attend something of this nature,” he said.