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Other Victories Don't Lessen Disappointment Over Failure of Safe Schools Bill

It was a long night of daggers and open wounds.

Outside the stately Capitol building in Sacramento the air was unseasonably chilly, but under the dome, on the floor of the Assembly, it was hotter than July as lawmakers began officially debating lesbian Assemblywoman Sheila James Kuehl's bill to add anti-discrimination protection for gays to the state's education codes.

The war raged for two-and-a-half hours, from shortly before midnight on June 4 to 2:10 a.m. on June 5, decimating civility and collegiality until every word, every silence dripped with emotion. When the final vote was tallied, the "Dignity for All Students" bill lay dead for another legislative session, defeated by one vote in the face of an unprecedented campaign by the Religious Right to deny equal protection to gay students.

AB 222, co-sponsored by the California Teachers Association and California Alliance for Pride and Equality (CAPE), would have added "sexual orientation" to the sections of the state Education Code that now protect students from other forms of discrimination. The bill failed 40 to 38, with eight Democrats from targeted conservative-leaning districts voting "no."

Before the vote on AB 222, gay rights advocates had enjoyed unprecedented success this session with four gay rights bills passing in the Assembly and two others winning approval in the Senate, including two separate bills to establish a statewide domestic partner registry. But it was Kuehl's bill that the Religious Right had singled out for early defeat and, with that accomplished, they were vowing to prevent the others from becoming law as well.

"The war has begun," said Assemblyman Bruce Thompson, R-Fallbrook, who, like all his GOP colleagues, voted against Kuehl's bill. "This issue will be the issue that will divide this country and this state more than any other."

Thompson was among some 30 members of the Assembly who spoke during what some observers said was the longest floor debate ever. Supporters of the bill told emotional personal stories and recalled murdered gay college student Matthew Shepard, whose mother sent a letter urging passage. But neither Shepard's letter, nor one from six California bishops, nor hundreds from statewide LGBT organizations and supporters, nor 700 enthusiastic youth from 37 of the state's 40 senate districts who descended on Sacramento for Youth Lobby Day last March were a match for the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the groups against the bill.

The anti-AB 222 campaign was spearheaded by the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI) and its front organizations, Campaign for California Families and Latinos Por La Familia. Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition and Focus on the Family also pitched in with radio spots and newspaper ads. CRI was founded 12 years ago by wealthy Christian right-wingers including former state Senate Republican leader Rob Hurtt, who reportedly gave $150,000 to the campaign to buy full-page ads in the districts where Democrats are expected to face tough re-election fights, such as those in Orange County and the Central and Inland Valleys.

Additionally, the campaign distributed 14,000 fliers through local churches; sent inaccurate, inflammatory, bilingual direct mail to every Latino/a surname in the targeted districts; and used sophisticated phone-banking where the recipient could be connected directly to the legislator's office to complain about the "homosexual agenda." The campaign also conducted extensive polling and provided legislators with a "critical analysis" by the CRI-related United States Justice Foundation.

In an ironic twist, the Boy Scouts of America--which has been waging a high-profile nationwide court battle for the right to ban gays from its ranks--told the Campaign for California Families to stop using the Scouts' image in ads, which asserted that Scouts would be "punished" by AB 222. Other tactics included pressuring Assemblywoman Nell Soto, D-Pomona, through her grandchildren by sending them home with homophobic fliers.

Soto was among the "Spineless 8," as Stonewall Democratic Club President Eric Bauman called the Democrats who voted against AB 222. The Assembly's one Green Party member voted for the bill, while all the Republicans voted against it. The other Democrats who voted against AB 222 are Sarah Reyes of Fresno, Lou Correa of Santa Ana, Sally Havice of Bellflower, Dean Florez of Fresno, Dennis Cardoza of Turlock, Mike Machado of Stockton, and Carl Washington of Compton.

There were many Democrats who did show backbone during the debate.

Culver City's Herb Wesson spoke eloquently about being haunted by not intervening when he witnessed two gay co-workers being harassed. "It was the first time in my life that I was a coward, and it ate at me then, and it eats at me now," he said. "I've been waiting 30 years to fight this fight."

Gloria Romero of Los Angeles, talked about the "brave" lesbian in her family. Tom Torlakson of Antioch, talked about his bisexual brother and Japanese-American George Nakano of Torrance--the only Democrat targeted by the Religious Right who ended up voting for the bill--recalled his days in an internment camp. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, berated the religious bigots. "This is not good Christian values we're hearing," she said. "This is fear. This is not American, and it's certainly not right."

Among those speaking for the Republicans was Bible-waving George House of Hughson. "First of all, there is no evidence that a person is born with this tendency," he said. "The fact that many are reformed is evidence that that is so. Are they born with bestiality, pedophiliac tendencies? How about an adulterer or a fornicator, all of which is condemned? This is a matter of choice."

That incensed Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, who angrily asked how she could be entrusted with a $76 billion dollar budget as head of the Appropriations Committee and yet be considered depraved. "This is a vote about basic dignity," she said. "This bill is about protecting children." The only reason to oppose the bill, she said, is because of the "bare, barren nature of one's inner soul."

Kuehl was also emotional. "This is very much about me," the former child TV star said. "This is about me as a little girl. This is about me in high school. This is about me getting kicked out of my sorority at UCLA. This is about me losing my series on 'Dobie Gillis' because of my sexual orientation.

"In the last five to 10 years, more and more harassment and violence has been targeted at our young people because they admit they are gay or lesbian or if they are not, but are thought by their peers to be so. And the violence has been escalating and escalating."

To underline the point, Kuehl pointed to studies such as the one cited by Jim Anderson of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network which found that LGBT students are seven times more likely than straight students to be threatened with a weapon at school.

But after three opportunities, the final vote ended up 40 in favor and 37 opposed with two Republicans, Jim Cunneen and Marilyn Brewer not voting.

"I feel enormous disappointment and I'm very, very angry," Kuehl said in a subsequent interview, "especially at the eight Democrats and two Republicans who could have easily found their spine and voted for this bill." She won't speculate on what happens among colleagues now. "Some of people who voted against this bill have been very supportive on other bills. It's very complicated. But I think the 40 members who voted for the bill were shocked at the inability of their colleagues to show the courage to vote for it and I'm very certain [that the eight] lost a lot of respect with the majority of the Democratic Caucus."

She was "thrilled" to hear that over the June 5-6 weekend, the California Democratic Party agreed with a proposal from the Gay and Lesbian Caucus to send a letter admonishing the eight for failing to uphold Democratic Party "core values." She also stressed the need to put the bill's defeat into perspective, noting that she has gained votes since she first introduced the bill in 1995 and that school issues invariably are more difficult in the "progression of acceptance."

Asked what went wrong, Kuehl talked about the right wing's ferocious campaign that generated thousands of phone calls "so that Nell Soto could turn to me and say 77 percent of the calls were against this bill. So what went wrong is the members who were targeted and voted against the bill caved in."

Kuehl refused to put the blame on any missteps by Democratic leaders or apathy on the part of the gay community. "Everyone did everything they could do," she said. "To say, when homophobia wins out, that gays and lesbians could have done something more is unrealistic. And how could I have possibly known that a woman with a gay son [Soto] and a woman with a lesbian sister [Reyes] could have voted against it? In January when I asked for co-authors, both Sarah and Nell said to me, 'I can't sign as a co-author, but I won't let you lose this bill.'"

Soto's opposition was a particular disappointment to Kuehl because Soto employed gays during her last campaign and asked for Stonewall's endorsement as a "family" member because of her son, gay activist Tom Soto. But Kuehl denies a widespread rumor that she swore at Soto during a meeting.

"Up to the last minute, I kept hoping they'd change their stony little hearts, so I didn't swear at any of them," she said, adding that "it's important not to blame Tom for Nell's vote." (Tom Soto said he "strongly advised" his mother against voting no. "I told her she could abstain but I'd love it if she voted yes," he said.)

Kuehl also downplayed criticism that she erred by not excluding school curriculums from the original draft of the bill. The Education Code currently prohibits districts from adopting curriculums or teachers from giving instruction that "reflects adversely" on persons because of their race or other characteristics. As introduced, AB 222 would have added "sexual orientation" to that list. In its attacks upon the bill, the Religious Right argued that this amounted to "teaching homosexuality."

"I kept hearing that the section on curriculum was most troubling, even though they completely misinterpreted it based on right wing lies," Kuehl said. "The easiest thing to do to make it possible for them to vote for the bill was to remove it--it was not the most important section."

But, as she suspected, it made no difference when she removed the curriculum section of the bill two days before the final vote.

What did make the difference, Stonewall President Eric Bauman said, was the ferocity of the Religious Right's attack. "We all got caught flat-footed," he said. "No one expected two waves. But in truth, had we been thinking about this in the long range, it makes perfect sense. It's their first shot in their campaign on the Knight Initiative and now they're going after the rest of our bills. Our next step is to get leaders from around the state to develop an advocacy plan, including traditional grassroots and paid advertising, for the upcoming elections. And we need to shore up the support that we have."

Meanwhile, activists like Rob Henning want to use AB 222 as a "litmus test" before endorsing candidates while also using the defeat to energize support for CAPE. "This is exhibit A for why we need a state-wide lobby," he said, saying a fully operational lobby would have helped generate polling data and countered the lies spread by opponents of the bill.

--Karen Ocamb