40 Arrested at Protest Against Top U.S. Civil Rights Official

Forty gay rights activists, angered over the appearance of the nation’s top civil rights official at a conference organized by ardent anti-homosexuals, were arrested in Anaheim Saturday for trying to disrupt the conference.

But U.S. Civil Rights Commission Chairman William B. Allen, whose plane to Orange County was delayed, missed the demonstration by a few hours. He nonetheless angered gay rights supporters by lauding his hosts at the conference as “courageous” and declaring that the establishment of special protections for homosexuals and other minorities is a “fatal” mistake.

About 150 gay activists from around the Southland marched in unison outside the Pan Pacific Hotel where the conference was held. It reached its crescendo when about 40 of the protesters, chanting “We’re here! We’re queer! We’re not going back!” courted arrest by blockading the entrance to conference.

After warnings by Anaheim police and hotel security, the protesters were quietly led outside to an awaiting police bus to face misdemeanor charges of trespassing. “It went great,” said Sgt. Mike Webb of the Anaheim Police Department. “No problems, very orderly.”

Even with the protesters gone, Allen’s early afternoon appearance generated no shortage of controversy.

A professor at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Allen had faced intense criticism from gay rights groups, members of Congress and even his fellow members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission for his scheduled appearance at the conference on homosexuality, organized by the Rev. Lou Sheldon, head of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition and a strident foe of gay rights.

Allen’s colleagues on the commission went so far Friday as to formally distance themselves from his remarks, saying that he had no authority to address the issue of homosexuality. They called the title of his talk “thoughtless, disgusting and unnecessarily inflammatory.” The talk was entitled: “Blacks? Animals? Homosexuals? What Is a Minority?”

Once at the conference, Allen praised his hosts for inviting him to take part in their “intellectually and morally defensible discussion” on homosexuality, despite what he later called the “closed-mindedness” of his colleagues of the civil rights panel.

In his talk, he declared that the establishment of special protected classes for minorities--be they homosexuals, blacks, or Asians--are haphazard, politically motivated and inevitably dangerous.

After the talk, Sally Gearhart, a San Francisco professor and gay activist called Allen’s position “an attack on gay rights. It’s something that the gay and lesbian community is going to have take very seriously . . . because he’s speaking from a very powerful position.”