Legal Look at Anti-Gay Effort Due

Before putting the measure on a ballot, the Irvine City Council has ordered a legal analysis of a controversial initiative that would remove homosexuals from the protection of a human rights ordinance.

It will be the first time in Orange County that the issue of equal rights for gays has been put before voters.

The council Tuesday night told the city attorney to report back May 9 on the legal and other ramifications of the initiative.

The initiative qualified for the ballot after the Irvine Values Coalition, a group made up primarily of residents who are religious fundamentalists, collected 5,433 signatures.

The measure, if approved, will remove the words “sexual orientation” from the ordinance, which was passed last year and bans discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, physical handicaps, marital status and sexual orientation. The measure will also require approval by the city’s voters on any future law involving sexual orientation.

Mayor Larry Agran said he wants the city attorney to study the initiative so that council members have as much information as possible before assigning the measure to an election.

The City Council could hold the election on Nov. 7, consolidating it with the school district’s election at a cost of $35,000, or wait until the council elections on June 5, 1990. A move by Councilman Edward A. Dornan to assign it to the November ballot, without the attorney’s report, failed 3-2.

Scott Peotter, chairman of the Irvine Values Coalition, says his group prefers waiting for the 1990 election so that the measure will not cost the city money. But if the city schedules a park bonds election in November, he prefers the earlier date.

“I’m happy the citizens will have an opportunity to have a say on this,” he said, adding that the initiative will delete “special protection for gays and lesbians.”

Equal vs. Special Rights

But James Boone, the mayor’s appointee to the human rights committee that recommended the ordinance, said the ordinance guarantees equal rights, not special rights.

“It applies to everyone equally,” he said.

Boone said Peotter’s group is “trying to impose their moral and religious standards on Irvine. . . . It is clearly an attempt to establish their right to discriminate.”

He predicted that voters will reject the initiative. Orange County is conservative on issues of defense and economics but is “pro-choice, pro-privacy. . . . They want government out of their bedroom.”