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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Group Forms To Battle Anti-Gay Rights Legislation

Associated Press

If gay rights come under fire in the 1997 Idaho Legislature, Schuyler Enochs will be there to stop it.

Enochs, of Caldwell, was jolted into working for gay and lesbian rights after watching his gay son Karl die of AIDS in 1994. Now he is co-chairman of Idaho for Basic Rights, which is forming to block possible anti-gay rights legislation from the Idaho Citizens Alliance.

“What we’re going to try and address is to get the Legislature to say, ‘We’re not going to get involved in this because it’s divisive and it doesn’t do any good,”’ Enochs said.

The Idaho Citizens Alliance plans to file two bills by the end of November, executive director Kelly Johannsen said.

One would prohibit public schools from promoting the gay lifestyle. That means teachers could not counsel gay students, offer some kinds of diversity training or take classes on dealing with sexual orientation.

The other measure would prohibit the use of tax dollars to promote the homosexual lifestyle. That means students at publicly funded colleges could not produce plays favorable to gays and lesbians, and libraries could not purchase materials about gays and lesbians.

“In our school we don’t promote drugs, we don’t promote alcohol use. Why? It’s detrimental to their health,” Johannsen said. “Statistically, if they engage in the homosexual lifestyle they’ll die 10 to 15 years younger than they would if they were a smoker.”

Enochs scoffed at the idea that schools can promote sexuality.

“You can’t teach it. You’re born that way,” he said.

Efforts to block an anti-gay marriage bill in the 1996 Legislature failed. But gay rights supporters say the 1997 session could be different. They cite the 1994 defeat of the Idaho Citizens Alliance’s anti-gay rights initiative, and this year’s decision by the group to drop a new version of the measure.