The Hate State

As I bask in the glow of such great election results - the re-election of an excellent president and the surge of support nationally for gay marriage, just to name a couple - I can't help but reflect on elections past which didn't leave me feeling so positive. The most striking example is what happened in 1992. It was 20 years ago that Colorado voters approved an amendment to the state constitution which systematically denied equal protection in any form to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered persons.

This wasn't, like today, a disagreement about gay marriage, but was a referendum in which the majority got to vote on the fundamental rights of a minority.

Amendment 2's passage sparked shock and outrage at home and prompted a nasty boycott of the whole state which ironically put many LGBT establishments out of business. Think about it: all that LGBT money which was not spent in Colorado, was also not spent at LGBT businesses which depended on that money.

I took Amendment 2 personally. How could my adopted home state betray me so profoundly? As I grew up on the plains of Nebraska, Colorado represented openness and diversity. If I sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which I didn't very often, I was thinking of that colorful state on the horizon where I wanted to live when I grew up.

I moved to Denver as a 27 year old in the late 1980s. I was very much at home in the thriving mile high gay community. Denver had (still has) a huge annual pride parade. I was able to join a gay friendly church and I could go to a gay doctor and a gay dentist (I don't now, but it seemed important at the time). There was a large population of other gays in which I could find friends and dates. I could be out of the closet and free.

When Amendment 2 reared its hateful head, our first mistake as a community was to believe that it really didn't have that much of a chance. After all, a similar local measure had failed in Denver the year before.

But we did what we could. We attended rallies, marches, and fund raisers. We went to the places like the state fair and campaigned. We spoke to church groups and put up "No on 2" signs.

As the election got closer, the hate grew uglier. Right wing churches practiced chanting anti-gay slogans. Hate crimes increased. One of the backers of Amendment 2 was overheard to say that if he had his way, all the gays would be gathered up and shipped out by rail, much as the Nazis disposed of the Jews in the 1930s and 40s. The fact that he was absolutely serious was chilling.

The night Amendment 2 passed, the same night Bill Clinton was elected President, my partner and I were at a campaign party in Capitol Hill. When the TVs announced the passage of the Amendment, a sudden quiet descended on the hall. Shock quickly turned to palpable fear. The fear threatened to combust into rage.  A speaker suggested that queer bashers now might think they had open license to attack.

My partner and I decided to head home before a riot started. From our living room, we watched television images of angry crowds gathering downtown, reportedly heading for other campaign parties where could be found elected officials to hold accountable. As TV reporters harassed dazed individuals, Mayor Wellington Webb finally appeared and tried to calm the crowd.

The next morning, amid talk of a boycott and news of celebrities canceling their visits to Colorado, the newspaper announced that a new nickname was catching on: The Hate State. Grimly, I wondered if we should put that on our license plates.

It was tempting to move after that. But where would we go? The backers of Amendment 2 promised to carry their crusade to other states. We decided to stay and fight. But it wasn't easy. As the rest of the world boycotted Colorado, I refused to spend money in any county where Amendment 2 had passed. That pretty much limited my shopping to Denver and Boulder. To this day, I still have misgivings about going to Colorado Springs, the political epicenter of homophobia, though I do understand that not everyone there is homophobic.

Amendment 2 was eventually declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. The 1990s saw whole new waves of activism and LGBT community development across the state. Equal rights advocates learned to cultivate relationships and education in the suburbs as well as in the city. Entities like the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado strategically donated to causes of broad interest in order to create positive visibility. It took a while, but my trust and faith in Colorado returned.

Fast forward two decades. Colorado is a progressive state, one where discrimination against LGBTs is against the law. The new speaker of the house is openly gay. Colorado, happily, voted for Barack Obama twice, and was the first state (along with Washington) to vote to legalize marijuana.

Lots of people don't even remember that Amendment 2 happened. I think we should remember in order to see how far we've come, and also to see what can happen again if we aren't careful.