IRVINE : Group Backing UCI Housing Plan Meets

A small group of activists gathered at UC Irvine on Monday to support a decision preventing gays and lesbians from living together in graduate-student housing. They were confronted by a much larger group of protesters, but no trouble developed.

The smaller group, which numbered about 10, carried a petition signed by other residents of the university’s Verano Place apartments to support Chancellor Jack W. Peltason’s ruling that the university would not allow homosexuals, lesbians and other non-traditional couples to live in family housing on campus.

“The chancellor has been pressured by the gay and lesbian community,” said protest organizer Deanne Frakes, 22, a resident of the Verano complex. “We just wanted him to know that he doesn’t have to give in to demands.”

Peltason’s supporters took the petition to his office after their short meeting outside the school administration building. However, Peltason was out of town, university spokeswoman Linda Granell said.

The petition, signed by 150 Verano residents, also asks Peltason and the university to provide campus housing only to those with marriage licenses.

Earlier this month, students had erected a cardboard shantytown to protest the school’s housing policy that bans homosexual couples.

Monday, the shantytown organizers descended en masse near where their opponents had gathered. They carried banners and formed lines on either side of those carrying the petition. The larger shantytown group remained silent, and no confrontation occurred.

However, one of the 10 activists said she received two phone threats as a result of her participation Monday to support the university’s stance on housing.

Although the shantytown activists remained passive Monday, some said they were outraged by a flyer distributed to promote another protest today at the university’s Student Council meeting. The flyer said in part: “What’s this world coming to. . . . Unmarried couples in MARRIED student family housing.”

“Their common argument is that we’ll recruit children into our ‘deviant’ life style,” said shantytown student organizer Jacqueline Sowell.