Box Turtle Bulletin

Today In History, 1978: Eugene, Oregon, Voters Defeat Gay Rights Ordinance

Supporters of Eugene’s gay rights ordinance gather for a candlelight protest on election night. (Source.)

Anita Bryant’s successful campaign to defeat a Miami non-discrimination ordinance in 1977 (Jun 7) launched a wave of ballot measures in cities across the country the following year. Voters in St. Paul, Minnesota repealed their ordinance by more than a two-to-one margin (see Apr 25) and Wichita, Kansas voters bested that two weeks later with a five-to-one vote (see May 9). Anita Bryant’s Protect America’s Children had poured $20,000 into those battles ($74,000 in today’s dollars), which were enormous sums for city elections.

The juggernaut next moved on to Eugene, Oregon two weeks later, where residents would decide whether to approve a gay rights amendment to the city’s human rights ordinance. The amendment would have extended existing prohibitions of discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations include sexual orientation. The Eugene City Council had passed the amendment on November 28, and it would have gone into effect thirty days later, but a quickly-formed group, calling themselves the Volunteer Organization Involved in Community Enactments (VOICE), and collected 10,000 signatures in less than two weeks to place the amendment on the next primary election ballot.

From The Eugene Register-Guard, May 21, 1978, page 3A.

Eugene is home to the University of Oregon and was known then for its friendliness to progressive politics. Gay leaders felt that this fight would give them the best chance of turning back the tide. Early polling showing voters about evenly split was promising. According to local news reports, VOICE and the pro-gay Eugene Citizens for Human Rights (ECHR) “conducted vigorous but restrained campaigns that lacked the inflammatory rhetoric of campaigns on similar gay rights proposals in other communities.” While VOICE sought examples of brochures and advertisements from the other campaigns, they elected to focus their message less on morality and religious beliefs, and more about whether gay people deserved “special” protections under the law. ECHR, similarly, shunned assistance from outside groups. ECHR coordinator Candy Hansen said, “Eugene is Eugene and we want to win this for the people of Eugene.”

From The Eugene Register-Guard, May 21, 1978, page 7A.

That didn’t happen. The vote was 22,898 to 13,427 — 63 to 37 percent. If there was a silver lining, it was this slim one: it was the best margin yet for the gay community. But a landslide was still a landslide. Turnout among college students was low, which may  partly explain why the polling looked so much more favorable.

Lynn Greene, a campaign coordinator for VOICE was ecstatic. “We’ve shown that a liberal community will oppose legislation destructive to moral standards. It shows that you don’t have to be religious to see that this kind of ordinance can negatively affect the community. The idea that this is a human rights issue is a facade, and people recognize that.” VOICE director Larry Dean said the vote was a reaction against a “swing in morals,” and even liberal Eugene voters weren’t ready to endorse an “acceptance of homosexuality.” “If they (the gay community) cannot win here, they can’t win anyplace, except perhaps San Francisco.”

That night, Anita Bryant sent Dean a congratulatory telegram praising “the Christian public and all the citizens of Eugene who worked and voted against legalized immorality. Let us continue to reach out in Godly love to all homosexuals who want deliverance, while opposing at the threshold every attempt of the militant homosexuals to represent their lifestyle as ‘normal’ and to impose it on us and our children.”  Meanwhile, Edward Rowe, the Executive Director for Bryant’s Protect American’s Children repeated his denial that his group was directly involved with VOICE’s campaign. “We worked only indirectly with the people in Eugene. There was consultation with our office in Miami Beach and the groups in Wichita and St. Paul. There was no funding in this case.”

While VOICE supporters were celebrating at a Chuckwagon steak house, the gay community and its allies marched quietly from the Eugene Hotel to the courthouse in a candlelight parade.