Lungren Urges Court to Back Anti-Gay Initiative

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, acting in the name of the people of California, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Colorado’s anti-gay initiative.

Without fanfare, Lungren last month joined attorneys general from six other states in signing a brief attacking a Colorado Supreme Court decision that declared the initiative unconstitutional.

The measure, approved by 54% of the state’s voters in 1992, prohibited local laws that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing or public accommodations. The Colorado court said the initiative violated homosexuals’ “right to participate equally in the political process.”

The Supreme Court has granted review of Colorado’s appeal and is scheduled to hear the case in the term that starts this fall. A ruling is expected by mid-1996.

Lungren’s action was disclosed Tuesday by the Recorder, a legal newspaper. Lungren spokesman Steve Telliano said the attorney general was prompted not by opposition to gay rights, but by support of states’ rights.

“Any state should have the right to pass a law that it wants to, unless it is violative of the U.S. Constitution,” Telliano said.

He said he did not know Lungren’s general views on gay rights.

The Colorado court said homosexuals were an “independently identifiable group”--a group not defined solely by its support for particular causes--and could not be excluded from civil rights protections that were available to other such groups.

The brief signed by Lungren argued that the Constitution provides such protections only to racial minorities and a few other groups recognized as targets of persistent discrimination. The Colorado ruling would extend the same rights to “every and any special interest group” and “cast a long shadow of uncertainty . . . over the traditional right of democratic self-government,” the brief argued.

Some California gay rights supporters said Lungren could have argued that the state court ruling was too broad without also urging the high court to uphold the Colorado initiative. They noted that California law prohibits job discrimination based on sexual orientation.

“California tax dollars are being spent to support a position that certainly is not the position of the voters in this state or the state Legislature,” said Roger Coggan of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center.