Famous Victories, but Nothing Won : Rights: The defeat of Oregon’s Measure Nine and others of its ilk only keeps homosexuals from losing ground.

On Election Day in Oregon, Measure Nine, the anti-gay initiative, was soundly defeated. Fifty-seven percent of the people said “No” to an initiative that would have amended the state constitution’s bill of rights to declare homosexuality “abnormal, perverse and unnatural” and to equate homosexuality with the serious crime of pedophilia.

The advertising for the campaign was designed to persuade voters that an initiative targeting gays and lesbians put everyone in danger. It was the same strategy I used in creating the advertising against the Briggs initiative in California in 1978. That initiative, which was defeated, would have mandated the firing of gay teachers. And it was the same strategy I used to help defeat Proposition 102, the 1988 initiative backed by William H. Dannemeyer that would have mandated reporting the names of HIV-positive men and women and children in California.

Solid victories all. Yes, but what was won? In Oregon, as in the California races, we stopped militant extremists from taking away rights from homosexuals. That’s good. But in most of Oregon today, people can still be fired from jobs or denied housing just because they’re gay or thought to be gay. Except in Portland, there is no legal recourse for such discrimination in Oregon. We won a victory on Election Day, but not a single right.

It is gays, and gays alone, who are forced to fight electoral battles to keep from losing rights. In Colorado, where an anti-gay measure was victorious, gays lost rights they had previously won in Denver, Boulder and Aspen. The battlegrounds are not always states. On Tuesday, we beat back an anti-gay initiative in Portland, Me. But lost one in Tampa, Fla.

In Oregon, gays were accused of having a militant agenda. We do have a political agenda: equality. And it’s time we got militant about it, rather than merely holding ground on a state-by-state, city-by-city basis. It is morally unfair. And it drains the gay community of millions of dollars it could and should be using to fight different battles.

Now, we must look to Washington. This is not a new idea. But during the Reagan-Bush years, it was a futile one. Things may be different now. Early in his campaign, Bill Clinton expressed solidarity with the most basic concerns of lesbians and gays in America. And lesbians and gays responded. They organized for Clinton. They raised money for his campaign. They registered thousands of new voters. And they were out in force on Election Day. In West Hollywood alone, there were 2,400 volunteers for Clinton-Gore.

For the first time, there was a national gay vote in America, which went overwhelmingly and properly for Clinton. At the risk of appearing to be yet one more special-interest group looking for a payback, I submit that the gay community--and those who support its agenda of equality--must ask for one thing: to have the words “sexual orientation” added to “race, religion, gender” as categories protected from discrimination by the federal government.

The truth is, rights have to be won in Washington. It is the responsibility of the federal government to protect the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority. And protecting the rights of gay men and lesbians should be no exception. That would be a victory all citizens who respect equality could savor and celebrate without reservation.