Gay Activists Vow to Seek State Initiative on Rights

Saying Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto of gay-rights legislation has galvanized widely diverse segments of the gay community, activists announced plans Thursday to broaden their protest by taking an anti-discrimination law directly to California’s voters.

Further, they pledged to continue nightly protests, stage a huge march on the Capitol next week and boycott California businesses during the height of the holiday shopping season.

In Orange County, gay activists on Thursday announced plans for a demonstration Saturday night in Garden Grove.

The actions are being planned by a loose-knit coalition of gay groups in an effort to harness anger at Wilson’s veto and translate it into a political force. To their stated surprise, activists have found a groundswell of mainstream outrage that they are scrambling to tap.

“This has really touched a nerve,” Carol F. Anderson, an attorney with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation, said of Wilson’s decision Sunday to veto a bill that would have banned job discrimination against homosexuals.

“It has made activists out of non-activists,” Anderson said.

“These are historic days of rage,” said Steve Martin, president of the Stonewall Gay Democratic Club. “Our community will never be the same. We have been mobilized. We have been radicalized.”

Demonstrations that have filled the streets of Hollywood the last four nights seem to be attracting many gays and lesbians who previously sat on the sidelines of political activism, according to participants. And looking beyond the crowds in the streets, doctors, lawyers and stockbrokers who are gay as well as traditionally active organizers are writing angry letters, switching political parties and planning legislative drives.

Several members of the gay community interviewed Thursday said the anger and betrayal felt at Wilson’s veto has reached levels not seen in years, prompting many once-complacent gays and lesbians to take action.

Scott Macdonald, a Santa Monica political consultant who is a member of the Republican Party, had never attended a demonstration--until this week.

“I expected this to be dominated by the people you always see on television,” Macdonald, 33, said. “But you get there and it’s not. It’s the guppies, as we used to be called: the gay urban professionals. They’re out there, and they are pissed.”

Similarly, at a town hall meeting in West Hollywood Wednesday night, several people, including a marketing executive and a sports-club manager, rose to say they were participating in political action for the first time.

“This is our Stonewall--Stonewall II,” R. Scott Hitt, a doctor from the Hollywood Hills, said, referring to riots in New York in 1969 that led to the first gay-rights movement. “This weekend has changed the gay community like no event in 10 years.”

Among the activities being planned by gay organizers is a campaign to place an initiative on the November, 1992, ballot that would achieve the same protection against job discrimination as the vetoed legislation. The effort to get such a measure passed could cost $1.5 million or more, Anderson said.

Organizers also want to intensify pressure on Wilson by marching on the Capitol on Oct. 11 to dramatize their fury and disrupt state government. Organizers are calling a statewide general strike that same day, urging gays and lesbians not to go to work or school.

A two-day boycott of stores on the weekend after Thanksgiving--traditionally the busiest shopping period of the year--is also being urged.

“We want to send a message (to Wilson) . . . that opposing gay and lesbian rights is bad for California business,” said Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

On Saturday, a demonstration titled “Out of the Closet--Into the Streets” is planned at 8 p.m. at the corner of Garden Grove and Harbor boulevards in Garden Grove, said M. Dan Wooldridge, chairman of the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center of Orange County.

Whether the momentum of what advocates describe as a snowballing movement is sustained remains to be seen.

Gay activists may find themselves forced to deal with a backlash: a leading center in Los Angeles offering legal and health services to homosexuals reported a spate of hate mail and threatening telephone calls.

“The extremists who gay-bash have been given a green light from Pete Wilson,” charged Torie Osborn, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center.

Wilson, in announcing the veto, warned bigots not to interpret his action as a carte blanche for violence against homosexuals.

Hundreds of people have been turning out to demonstrate in Los Angeles and other cities every night since Wilson made the veto public. In Los Angeles, the marches have gotten larger every night, according to participants. Crowd estimates at Wednesday night’s demonstration, which ended up outside the Hollywood Bowl, ranged from 500 to more than 2,000, and prompted police to block off numerous streets.

Violent incidents have marred some of the Los Angeles protests. At least two men have been arrested for assaults on protesters--one using his car, the other a heavy flashlight. A clash between gays throwing debris and Los Angeles police swinging batons outside the Century Plaza Hotel Monday night left both sides counting their injured and accusing the other of provoking the violence.

Protesters say they have sought to practice nonviolent civil disobedience. When a scuffle broke out between militants and religious fundamentalists on Hollywood Boulevard, participants said, the crowd launched into a chant of “No violence! No violence!”

Wooldridge, speaking Thursday outside the office of U.S. Sen. John Seymour in Anaheim, said that while his group has deplored the sometimes violent protests of radical gay groups, some civil disobedience may now be necessary.

“We have been opposed to the actions of ACT UP and Queer Nation and have deplored their violence and vandalism,” Wooldridge said. “But the governor’s actions have made us bring these groups together.” If demonstrators in Garden Grove on Saturday wish to engage in civil disobedience “we will not discourage that.”

“Maybe people will block streets and block sidewalks,” Wooldridge said. “Our rage has reached such a level. (But) we will discourage any acts of vandalism or damage to property or persons.”

Garden Grove police officials said they are working with the organizers to set rules for Saturday’s demonstration, but Capt. David Abrecht said his department will be out in force to prevent violence.

“I can’t be real specific, but I will say our process will allow the march to proceed peacefully and protect everybody’s rights without letting the situation become violent,” he said.

In San Francisco, police Wednesday night arrested about 40 demonstrators who blocked traffic and lobbed eggs at an exclusive Nob Hill hotel where they believed Wilson was speaking. No arrests were reported in Los Angeles. Demonstrators interrupted Wilson’s speech at Stanford University Tuesday, hurling eggs and oranges.

Wilson’s veto, several gays said Thursday, has mobilized many heretofore apathetic gays who had been lulled into complacency because of gains made by earlier generations of homosexual activists. For them, Wilson’s action came as a stinging, unexpected setback.

“Gay people tend to be complacent,” said Wayne Shetrone, 21, a theater wardrobe specialist who lives in West Hollywood. For example, he said, “When you live in West Hollywood, it’s kind of like living in Disneyland. . . . (Since) everyone’s gay, you tend to forget there is a world outside. And there’s a lot of hate out there.”

Hitt, the Hollywood Hills doctor, said he and several of his friends learned about the veto as they sat around the pool at his home. Many of his friends, never before politically active, were the first to insist on taking to the streets to demonstrate, he said, and now they call him to spread the word about each day’s protest plan.

“One of the most exciting things has been to see how many new people have gone to the streets,” he said.

To the hundreds of thousands of gays who believed they were working within the system to effect political change, Wilson’s action was especially devastating.

Correspondent Terry Spencer contributed to this story from Orange County.