Rights Panel Blasts Chief’s Speech on Gays

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission on Friday blasted its own chairman for a speech on homosexuality that he is to give today in Anaheim at a conference organized by a group stridently opposed to gay rights.

By a vote of 6 to 1, the commission adopted a statement saying that it considers the title of Chairman William B. Allen’s talk--”Blacks? Animals? Homosexuals? What Is a Minority?”--to be “thoughtless, disgusting, and unnecessarily inflammatory.”

Undeterred, Allen said the flap over his appearance at the West Coast Symposium on Homosexuality and Public Policy Implications has only made him more determined to deliver the speech today.

In a meeting held by telephone conference call, Allen was the only commission member to oppose the panel’s critical statement Friday. Allen, a professor at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, has become increasingly estranged from his fellow commissioners since he became entangled earlier this year in an Apache tribal custody dispute in Arizona and was accused of abusing his authority.

Allen has already faced criticism from some members of Congress and national gay rights organizations for his decision to appear at the conference. Further, Southern California gay activists have pledged to protest his appearance at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Anaheim.

Speaking immediately after Allen will be Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), who has led recent fights against gay rights causes in Orange County and in Washington.

Civil Rights Commission members said Allen’s involvement in the Anaheim conference may only intensify calls for his quick departure as head of the panel, which is charged with studying civil liberties issues.

“This is another sad episode in the saga of the unguided missile who is chairman of the civil rights panel,” Commissioner Mary Frances Berry of Philadelphia said in an interview. “It makes it very difficult for us to get anything done when he keeps tossing these bombshells into the proceedings.”

Allen, countering the reprimand from his colleagues, accused them of resorting to “a kind of reactive bigotry, failing to benefit from the opportunity to learn.”

He added in an interview: “Any hesitation about speaking at this conference that I once had over scheduling difficulties has been erased by the principle of the thing--that I will not let intimidation overshadow civil discourse.”

Commission members said they were angered not only by the title of Allen’s remarks but also because he has offered himself as a commission representative on an issue that the panel has never addressed. Members said they are precluded by commission law from delving into issues of sexual orientation.

Adding to the controversy over the title of the talk is its forum--a conference on homosexuality organized by the Rev. Lou Sheldon of Anaheim.

A religious fundamentalist, Sheldon and his supporters have adamantly and vocally opposed the Orange County gay community in recent months on matters ranging from the Santa Ana gay pride festival to an Irvine gay rights initiative. Speakers at the conference, most adopting the view that homosexuality is a sickness and a perversion, discussed “reparative therapy” and other ways of “changing” homosexuals at their first meeting Friday.