Posted at 4:18 p.m. EDT Friday, August 24, 2001

Gay rights battle in Broward heats up

BY BETH REINHARD
breinhard@herald.com

http://www.miami.com/c/community/people/gay_and_lesbian/locdocs/084740.htm

[TEXT=]With just 25 days to go, activists on both sides of a petition drive aimed at repealing Broward County's gay rights law are gearing up for the home stretch.

A group called Equal Rights Not Special Rights must collect 62,143 signatures by Sept. 17 to put a referendum striking down the law on the ballot.

On Wednesday, a letter urging recipients to sign an enclosed petition hit mailboxes around Broward County.

The same day, about 50 people gathered at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center in Fort Lauderdale to plan ways to stymie the campaign.

They distributed yard signs and pins that say ``Decline to Sign.'' They volunteered to distribute fliers door-to-door on Saturday mornings. And they vowed to follow petition gatherers to shopping malls, parks and government buildings to urge passersby not to sign.

``Take this matter into your own hands,'' said Richard Giorgio, a political consultant for Americans for Equality, which is trying to defeat the petition drive. ``We need to be vigilant and stop them at every opportunity.''

The letter mailed by Equal Rights Not Special Rights to county residents calls homosexuals ``a well-heeled, politically powerful special interest group,'' and says the law gives them ``special protected status.''

In 1995, the County Commission added sexual orientation to the list of categories in a anti-discrimination law that includes race, gender, religion, age, disability and political affiliation. T

The executive director of Equal Rights Not Special Rights, Lorna Bryan, won't say how many people have signed the petition so far.

She said the group plans to turn in extra signatures to make sure it has at least the 7 percent of the electorate needed for a referendum.

``We're going to do it, that much I can tell you,'' Bryan said. ``We know it's crunch time, and we have a lot of work to do to make sure we have good signatures.''

Questions about the validity of petition signatures have hampered a similar campaign to overturn a gay rights county ordinance in Miami-Dade.

A group called Take Back Miami-Dade has turned in nearly 51,000 signatures so far, but election officials threw out 38 after a review of 200.

The Miami-Dade state attorney's office is investigating possible signature fraud.

Express Gay News

Americans For Equality Call Community Meeting

http://12.41.88.217/beta/index.asp

Americans For Equality: Empower Broward (AFE) will be holding what they are calling “a very important community meeting” at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of South Florida on Wednesday, August 22 at 6pm.

      Robin Bodiford, Chair of AFE, said, “We are just about to enter the final month of this six month signature gathering campaign of our opponents ‘Equal Rights Not Special Rights (ERNSR),’ perhaps better known by their dishonest slogan ‘Save Our Scouts,’ which they continue to use even after the Boy Scouts have strongly demanded that they cease.”

      It has been reported that ERNSR is paying up to $15 per signature under various circumstances. AFE is calling their efforts “a far greater threat, well funded and better organized than the similar one we faced about six years ago.”

      Bodiford concluded by stating, “This battle will not be won so easily. Our opposition is taking their perception of America’s new political climate with gusto, feeling the time has come for the ultimate ‘jihad’ to curb the human rights of the people they do not prefer. And that’s us.”

      For more information about Americans For Equality visit their website at www.AmericansForEquality.org or by calling 954.567.8585.

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