SOCIAL ISSUES : Anti-Gay-Rights Measures Ignite Aggressive Battles in 7 States : Proposed ballot initiatives in Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Missouri and Michigan have rallied forces on both sides.

Kelly Walton spent a dozen days driving the length and breadth of Idaho, stopping in every tiny town. Missourian Paul Summers is meeting with church groups. Doug Burman’s helpers in Washington state are talking with their friends at work.

They and the like-minded in four other states are on a quest. Signatures are their trophy--enough to earn a place on their November state ballots for a set of referendums that, if enacted, could hobble the gay-rights movement.

From the Pacific Coast to the Midwest, conservative activists like Walton, Summers and Burman are circulating petitions for ballot initiatives that would bar the adoption of any laws protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination. Several of the proposed measures also would forbid government recognition of gay domestic partnerships, the spending of public funds in a way that implies acceptance of homosexuality, or its sympathetic treatment in public schools.

With a month to go before most of the petitions are due, it remains unclear how many of the ballot drives in the seven states--Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Missouri and Michigan--will be successful. But they are already occupying center stage in the gay movement, where they are seen as an ominous trend that will be difficult to defeat.

“This is an unofficial national referendum on homosexuality in America,” said Robert Bray of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, one of several gay groups organizing against the initiatives. “And it’s not a coincidence these are popping up all over.”

Initiative proponents are moving ahead despite the legal clouds that hang over such measures. An anti-gay-rights referendum approved by Colorado voters in 1992 is bottled up by court challenges. A number of local referendums adopted by Oregon towns have been rendered toothless by a state law, which is in turn the subject of a lawsuit, while in other states courts have blocked local anti-gay-rights ordinances.

Such challenges notwithstanding, conservative activists say it is important to keep the matter before the public. “We want to get the debate out of the Establishment and (to) the citizens,” said Lon Mabon of the Oregon Citizens Alliance, the organization behind a bitterly contested referendum that was defeated by voters in 1992. The group has since promoted the local initiatives passed in some two dozen Oregon communities.

“The more elections we can have, the more votes, the more it’s going to tell the judges and the politicians and even the editorial boards (that) this is the standard we want to have,” added Mabon, who is trying to get another anti-gay initiative on the Oregon ballot this fall and is also involved in ballot efforts in Washington state, Idaho and Nevada.

Gay-rights foes describe the initiatives as a response to an aggressive gay movement that they say is demanding endorsement of immoral behavior. “They insist that society--with government reinforcement--recognize their lifestyle,” said Summers, who is leading the Missouri petition drive.

The signature-gathering efforts generally have been low key--partly, backers say, because they don’t have much money, don’t want to be harassed and want to keep their opponents guessing.

Organizers in Washington state--where there are two competing anti-gay measures--Idaho and Oregon seem confident of collecting enough signatures, but in other states the outcome is less certain.

The Arizona initiative hasn’t even mustered solid support in the conservative community.

“It’s not a mainstream conservative effort,” said Cathi Herrod of the Arizona branch of Concerned Women for America, which is not involved with the referendum drive. “It’s a question of timing and strategy. We just don’t believe it’s the right strategy for Arizona in ’94. . . . We would rather focus time and energy on (political) races.”

In the meantime, gay-rights attorneys are trying to derail the initiatives before they make it to the ballots. The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national group, has joined legal teams challenging the ballot proposals on both technical and constitutional grounds.

“Measures which put the fundamental rights of individual citizens to a vote are an inappropriate subject for the ballot,” said Lambda staff attorney Suzanne B. Goldberg.

The legal attacks have so far yielded mixed results.

In March, the Florida Supreme Court killed a proposed initiative, snuffing out what would have been one of the most volatile anti-gay referendum fights in the nation. The court ruled that the measure violated the state constitution by addressing more than one subject. Legal challenges in Idaho and Washington state have failed, while a lower court’s ruling against Mabon’s proposed Oregon initiative is on appeal.

Both sides are drawing from the 1992 referendum battles in Colorado and Oregon, refining their messages accordingly as they pursue middle-of-the-road voters. Polling, focus groups and political consultants are helping shape themes.

Gay-rights advocates have learned that one of their most powerful arguments is that the ballot measures promote discrimination. “Seventy-six percent of the American public thinks it’s wrong to discriminate (against gays) in hiring and firing,” said Anne F. Lewis, a political consultant working with the Human Rights Campaign Fund, a national gay group. “You’re never going to get better than 76%.”

Gay-rights advocates are also portraying the referendums as part of a much larger conservative effort. “I think these initiatives are wedges by which the far right can divide communities and advance a broader agenda,” said Bray, who has traveled more than 100,000 miles crisscrossing the country to find and train budding gay organizers in such unlikely spots as Wyoming and the outback of Arizona.

Indeed, Bray and others insist that the initiatives have spurred so much organizing in unexpected places that the movement will come out ahead, regardless of what happens in November.

Activists are further turning to the Democrats for help. The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund last winter released a letter in which President Clinton expressed disapproval of the anti-gay initiatives. And representatives of the Democratic National Committee have attended coalition meetings about the referendums.

“We’re tracking these developments largely as they impact turnout in those states,” said DNC spokesman Jim Whitney. “Clearly anti-gay initiatives are one vehicle the radical right uses to . . . get their voters out.”

Gay-rights opponents are sharing ideas as well. Last month, the group that spearheaded the 1992 Colorado referendum hosted a closed meeting in Colorado Springs in which anti-gay activists from a number of states mulled over strategy.

Not that they are in universal agreement. In Washington state, for instance, there is some resentment of Mabon’s arrival.

“We don’t believe Lon Mabon’s presence--nothing personally against him--would help our effort, and we have a different approach,” said Burman, who is backing a rival anti-gay measure.

And although the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition is helping with several of the initiative drives, his group decided not to proceed with a ballot effort it was considering for California.

Pointing to the repeal of local gay-rights ordinances in various states, Sheldon said: “It’s been shown to us by these elections it’s more prudent for them to make a move and then repeal, than for us to initiate a ballot measure against them.”

The Tug-of-War Over Gay Rights

Anti-gay ordianances aim to repeal existing laws or block new laws that would protect gay people from discrimination. Federal civil rights applies o race, creed, color and religion--not sexuality or gender.

States in which efforts are under way to put anti-gay initiatives on ballots Arizona Missouri Oregon Washington Nevada Idaho Michigan *

States with legislation protecting gay rights Massachusetts Connecticut New Jersey California Hawaii Minnesota Wisconsin Vermont District of Columbia FROM PROPOSALS TO LIMIT GAY RIGHTS

OREGON: “Children, students and employees shall not be advised, instructed or taught by any government agency, department or political unit . . . that homosexuality is the legal or social equivalent of race, color, religion, gender, age or national origin.”

IDAHO: “Same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships are hereby declared to be against public policy and shall not be legally recognized in any manner by any agency . . .

Sources: Human Rights Campaign Fund, People for the American Way Action Fund

Researched by D’JAMILA SALEM/Los Angeles Times