Telluride Cites Its Record, Calls Boycott Unfair : Politics: The Rocky Mountain home of the annual Telluride Film Festival seeks its own pro gay-rights identity.

The entertainment industry might be in a tizzy over whether to join Barbra Streisand and gay-rights advocates in their boycott of Aspen, Colo., this holiday, but what Hollywood celebrities think about the issue holds little weight with residents a few hours away in Telluride. Locals there are more concerned with how their town is being discriminated against.

Telluride, the second home of Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, Sylvester Stallone and Oliver Stone, is home of the Telluride Film Festival every Labor Day weekend.

Festival co-founder Stella Pence said in a telephone interview that she finds Streisand’s stand slightly disingenuous: “Has someone asked Barbra Streisand to withdraw ‘The Prince of Tides’ from all the video stores in Colorado? When I see that, then I can believe there’s some serious commitment here.”

A statement written with her husband, Bill, ran in the local Telluride Times-Journal and said, in part: “We realize that on the heels of this election, the ‘PC’ behavior, the trendy and ‘now’ thing would be to leave the State of Colorado. Rather than act in a negative knee-jerk manner, we would like to join the world and Colorado organizations to fight this injustice--not turn our backs on it.”

They said the Telluride festival has been in the “vanguard” of gay rights and a place where gay-themed films such as “The Life and Times of Harvey Milk” were showcased “long before it became fashionable.”

As of Monday, Los Angeles joined the cities of Atlanta, New York and Philadelphia banning city employees from traveling on business to Colorado, supporting the protest fanned by Streisand’s declaration last Friday at an American Civil Liberties Union dinner that she will boycott the state.

Like Aspen, Telluride voted overwhelmingly against Amendment 2, a statewide measure that voids and prevents legislation that protects the rights of homosexuals.

Aspen, however, had a 15-year-old local ordinance on its books protecting gay rights prior to the election (now struck down) and the “Aspen Community” even took out full-page ads in the Hollywood trade papers and the New York Times in recent weeks to remind imagemakers of its longtime commitment to “openness and diversity.”

Rather than join in a lawsuit filed jointly by Aspen, Boulder and Denver to challenge the constitutionality of Amendment 2, Telluride, a tiny mountain mining village (population: 1,306) nestled in the Rocky Mountains, seeks its own pro gay-rights identity.

“I can understand the emotion that drives the (boycott) decision, but people should be reasonable. It’s like condemning the entire United States for the war in Vietnam,’ said Telluride resident Rick Silverman, who runs the annual Mountain Film Festival.

To that end, former town councilwoman (and newly elected San Miguel County Commissioner) Anna Zivian said a petition has been turned into the town council seeking a new local ordinance protecting gay rights in defiance of the statewide ban, which the governing body decided Wednesday to put before the voters in February. If passed, the ordinance will invite a challenge by the state attorney general’s office, which is the kind of pro gay-rights publicity Zivian said the anti-Amendment 2 supporters in Telluride want.

As for the boycott spearheaded by Streisand and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in Los Angeles, Zivian is skeptical: “The best way is to fight it from the inside. I don’t want it to be overturned just because people are concerned about the lack of tourism from California. It should be overturned because it’s anti-constitutional and it goes against the values that are good here.”

The Telluride Film Festival organizers believe the creative community, more than any other, should decry a boycott on philosophical grounds.

“To boycott the arts in the very counties that support and work for gay rights is an ironic backlash and plays right into the hands of the fundamentalists who pushed this amendment through in the hinterlands,” the statement reads. “As the arts can nurture the very people and ideas they fear, these people would be delighted to see the arts suffer and ultimately leave Colorado.”

GLAAD Executive Director David M. Smith sees the boycott in completely opposite terms. “Every right-wing extremist group is on its way to other parts of the country now that Amendment 2 has passed,” he said. “This outrage is not directed to any one city; it’s not punitive; it’s a purely political and economic move to force the repeal of Amendment 2 as quickly as possible and send a message to rest of the nation.”

Smith circulated a petition among 250 Hollywood actors, producers and directors asking support for the boycott, most who he said ignored it. Only one person, actor Michael Douglas, called in person to express his views that the boycott was “misguided” and would hurt those who have been most supportive of gay rights in the past. Fellow Aspen regular Joan Rivers said she will observe the boycott; media mogul David Geffen won’t say.

Bookings through Telluride’s various hotel and condominium agencies have yet to reflect any boycott, spokesmen for them say. The area, which is fast becoming the new Hollywood hot spot, has hundreds of rentals available during ski season--most of which are already booked for New Year’s week.