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From: RAKNGLTF@aol.com on Wed, Aug 31, 1994 11:19 AM


NATIONAL GAY & LESBIAN TASK FORCE POLICY INSTITUTE

NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Robert Bray, 415-552-6448; rfbngltf@aol.com


BEYOND LON MABON: FIGHTING THE RIGHT
IN OREGON, IDAHO AND ACROSS THE NATION

NGLTF Focuses On Ballot Initiatives And
Long-Term Movement Building

 Washington, D.C., August 31, 1994...As campaign battles heat up in Oregon
and Idaho -- states with anti-gay initiatives -- the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force (NGLTF) Fight the Right Project is gearing up for fierce fights
against the Radical Right on Election Day this November and well after the
last ballot has been counted.

 NGLTF Fight the Right Project is providing direct assistance to Save Our
Communities PAC (SOC PAC) in Portland, Or., and the No on 1 campaign in
Boise, Id., to help those states defeat anti-gay initiatives, and is
organizing events later this year for long-term movement building.

 In Oregon, Lon Mabon, head of the Oregon Citizens Alliance, has successfully
placed on the ballot a measure that local activists are calling, "Son of 9."
 The new measure, Proposition 13, or the Child Protection and Minority Status
Act, is a "cleaned-up" version of 1992's defeated Measure 9.   It would
repeal existing gay rights laws, prohibit such laws in the future, and
encourage discrimination based on sexual orientation.

 In Idaho, the Idaho Citizens Alliance has placed Proposition 1 on the
ballot, which would, among other things, prevent the state from passing laws
providing basic civil rights protections to homosexuals.

 The NGLTF Fight the Right Project has dispatched staff directly to the field
to assist campaign officials.  Project staffers are working with campaign
activists to produce and execute media plans, refine campaign commercial
"messages," and assist with rural organizing, campaign operations, coalition
building and fundraising.

 But NGLTF is also focusing on organizing beyond the initiatives this
November.  Besides direct campaign assistance, the NGLTF Fight the Right
Project has scheduled for this fall:

--  Fight the Right Movement Building trainings in Hawaii, New Mexico,
Nebraska and New England (Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire), supported,
in part, by grants from the Haymarket People's Fund and the Tides Foundation.
 NGLTF has already presented grassroots organizing trainings in some 20
states.  Some of the trainings represent the first time gay/lesbian/
bisexual and transgender activists have gathered in states with only
fledgling community groups.

-- Three Fight the Right intensives at the 1994 NGLTF Creating Change
conference in Dallas, Texas, Nov. 10-13; the day-long intensives -- Fighting
the Right in Education,  The 1994 Elections, and Organizing the Religious
Community -- will combine with workshops on "Sexuality and the Right Wing,"
"Know Your Enemy," "People of Color Respond to the Right," "Fight the Right
and the Media," "Legal Issues," and much more.

-- The NGLTF Equality Statement Endorsement Project.  The Project features
endorsements by 100 of the nation's leading political, entertainment,
progressive advocacy and other figures and groups who support civil rights
protections and who have lended their names to coalition efforts against
Radical Right anti-gay initiatives.

 "We must look at these battles as opportunities for long-term movement
building," said NGLTF Fight the Right organizer Robert Bray.  "Win or lose in
November, we must be stronger in January 1995.  The Right will continue to
refine their tactics and come back again and again unless we have in place a
strong grassroots force to repel them now and in the future."

 For more information on NGLTF Fight the Right grassroots trainings and the
campaigns against anti-gay ballot measures, contact NGLTF Fight the Right's
Robert Bray, (415)552-6448, rfbngltf@aol.com.  For more information on the
1994 Creating Change conference, contact (202)332-6483, ext. 3304.

 The NGLTF Fight the Right Project was formed in 1992 in the wake of the
Republican National Convention and that event's prime-time attacks on gays
and lesbians.  Since then, the project has helped local activists battle
anti-gay initiatives and build a stronger, permanent grassroots movement.

###