Gay Rights and Religious Right on Collision Course on Idaho’s Plains : Election: Proposition 1 would prohibit the state government from giving homosexuals protection under discrimination laws.
From his mountainside home, Kelly Walton has a commanding view of the irrigated farmland and sagebrush plains of southern Idaho. On a clear day, he can see the Sawtooth Mountains, 120 miles away.
Walton also spies more ominous things on the horizon: Godlessness. Crumbling morals. A social and spiritual decay spreading across the nation, sapping its strength and stealing its soul.
His rural neighbors do not always share Walton’s alarm.
“I tell them: Do you have a television? Do your kids watch MTV? Do you watch the news? It’s everywhere,” Walton said. “Nowhere in the country are we safe from people who want to portray a very deadly behavior as healthy and normal.”
He’s talking about homosexuality. As chairman of the Idaho Citizens Alliance, Walton is the driving force behind a Nov. 8 ballot measure called Proposition 1. It has a lot of Idaho residents talking about homosexuality.
Proposition 1 would prohibit Idaho’s state or local governments from giving homosexuals protection under anti-discrimination laws. It would bar public schools from suggesting homosexuality is acceptable, and would require libraries to keep books on homosexuality away from minors.
The ballot measure alone makes Walton noteworthy. Conservative Christians tried to put anti-gay rights measures on the ballot this year in 10 states and succeeded in only two: Idaho and Oregon.
But more is at stake here than a ballot measure. Homosexuality is just the first issue Walton wants to tackle.
He’s part of an increasingly vocal movement of conservative Christians translating their religious beliefs into political action. From school board elections to national Republican Party politics, the so-called “religious right” is making its presence felt throughout the country.
In Idaho, Walton has jump-started a new political coalition. His opponents have responded by doing the same. Now homosexuality, which most Idaho residents would be happy to ignore, is the state’s hottest issue.
Idaho boosters like to call this “the last best place,” and in many ways the state is a vestige of what the nation used to be: mostly rural, white and middle class.
It’s a family values kind of place--a good place, Kelly Walton believes, to fight for the soul of America.
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Turn off Interstate 84, head south on Highway 30, and you’ll know you’re in Heyburn (population 2,714) when you see a big billboard in a cow pasture. It says: “Prepare To Meet Thy God.”
Drive another mile, past the grain bins of Western Seed, and you’ll find a small cinder-block office. This is Walton Inc., a family-run construction business, and inside is Kelly Walton.
He is 38, soft-spoken and unfailingly polite.
He is also capable of stirring up the strongest of emotions. Opponents brand him as a mean-hearted, homophobic zealot. The governor recently called him one of Idaho’s “voices of hatred and intolerance.” An anonymous caller left this message on his answering machine: “You’re a dead man, you Nazi swine.”
Walton shrugs off the criticism. “It takes a lot of guts to share the truth sometimes,” he said.
Two years ago, most Idaho residents had never heard of Kelly Walton.
He came here from California in 1975 at age 19, moving with his parents. He stayed until 1979, working in his father’s construction business, then moved to Oregon with his newlywed wife, Miriam.
He became active in the Oregon Citizens Alliance, a group dedicated to opposing gay rights and fielding conservative Christian candidates. But in 1990, Walton returned to the family business in Idaho, saying he was burned out on politics.
By January, 1993, he was back in the fray. Two months earlier, Oregon voters had rejected an OCA-backed initiative that labeled homosexuality “unnatural and perverse.” Now Walton, with OCA chairman Lon Mabon at his side, was announcing the formation of the Idaho Citizens Alliance.
Its first goal: to put an anti-gay rights initiative on the Idaho ballot.
Things moved slowly at first. The family business contributed more than $50,000 last year in cash and in-kind contributions to help Walton tap the public sentiment he believed was out there.
In May, Walton and ICA Executive Director Bill Proctor drove around Idaho for two weeks, speaking in churches and restaurants, asking shopkeepers to put initiative petitions on their counters.
Walton says he found widespread agreement for his message that homosexuality is unhealthy and immoral. The proof, he says, is in the numbers.
By July, 1,200 volunteers statewide had collected 38,510 valid signatures, well over the 32,000 needed to put the measure on the ballot.
Walton believes supporters include even some people who publicly oppose Proposition 1. That’s because criticizing homosexuality is politically incorrect, he said, “but they’ll get behind that curtain and vote yes.”
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It is 7 a.m. in Boise, and Brian Bergquist is arriving at the No On 1 Coalition headquarters for an interview. First, however, he must figure out how to turn off the alarm system.
As coalition chairman, he also has gotten threatening phone calls, including one from a man who said he intended to blow Bergquist’s head off.
With the alarm off, Bergquist leads the way into a low-rent suite of rooms. It’s hard to say which is uglier, the dingy brown carpet or dingy brown paneling. Bergquist looks around proudly. Donated, he says.
Gay activism bloomed late in Idaho. Boise’s first gay pride march was in 1990, and across much of rural Idaho, a gay or lesbian still has two basic lifestyle choices: in the closet or out of town.
Bergquist was one of the first activists here willing to go public. But just as Walton lacks the brimstone of a cable TV preacher, neither is Bergquist an in-your-face activist.
He is 36, soft-spoken and unfailingly polite.
The low-key approach has worked well. The No On 1 Coalition raised more than $183,000 in donations from July through September, compared to less than $20,000 raised by initiative backers.
The coalition enjoys support outside the gay community. Nearly every elected official in Idaho, Democratic and Republican, opposes Proposition 1. The attorney general called the measure unconstitutional.
But the voters’ dilemma remains:
Is Proposition 1 needed to keep homosexuals from gaining special rights, as Walton argues? Or will it deny them basic civil rights that are supposed to be enjoyed by all, as Bergquist argues?
It’s a tossup as to how voters will lean, says Gary Moncrief, political science professor at Boise State University. Homosexuals won’t win any popularity contest in Idaho, but there’s also a strong tradition here of minding one’s own business.
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Nationwide, conservative Christian soldiers are marching into politics.
The Christian Coalition, founded by evangelist Pat Robertson, claims more than 1 million members. Its influence in the Republican Party was evident in September at the group’s annual conference, which featured three 1996 presidential prospects: former Vice President Dan Quayle, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander.
Religious-right activists reportedly control or dominate nearly 20 state Republican parties. Christian groups are sponsoring hundreds of candidates for school boards, city councils and state legislatures.
Homosexuality has become a rallying issue for them.
Colorado voters approved a 1992 initiative prohibiting local governments from passing laws protecting homosexuals, but the law never took effect and has been declared unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court. The case is bound for the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Colorado measure was a model for initiative campaigns this year in 10 states: Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon and Washington. But the campaigns gathered enough signatures only in Idaho and Oregon, where the OCA is trying again, this time without the “unnatural and perverse” language.
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