Gay rights

Battle lines drawn for vote Tuesday in Miami

From Wire Reports

MIAMI After 4 months of bitter argument, Miami voters will decide Tuesday whether to uphold, or repeal a Dade County ordinance that bars discrimination against homosexuals in employment, housing and public accommodations.

The outcome is expected to be close. The Miami dispute is the first of its kind in a major U.S. city. It has focused national attention on the long-smoldering question of what legal and social status to accord the nation's homosexuals, who constitute 5% to 10% of the population by many estimates.

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Both sides in the fight have called in outside help, have raised funds nationally and have served notice that they will continue the struggle elsewhere in the country. after the balloting.

Miami newspapers and airways are filled with tens of thousands of dollars worth of last-minute campaigning.

The advertisements of Save Our Children, the leading antihomosexual group, term homosexuality a religious abomination and assert that homosexuals recruit and molest children.

The advertisements of the Coalition. for Human Rights, the leading homosexual group, contend that homosexuals are not interested in children but in personal freedom.

The coalition attempted to discredit the molestation charge Friday by holding a

news conference at which four psychia trists, among them John Spiegel, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, declared in a joint statement:

"Homosexuals are not child molesters. Homosexuals as 'role models' do not influence children's sexual orientation. Homosexuals are capable of being productive and responsible members of society."

The homosexual community in Miami is relatively small and quiet compared with homosexual communities in cities such as New York and San Francisco. The main reason the Miami community became the focal point of a national gay rights fight is Anita Bryant, the pop singer and television promoter of Florida orange juice.

When the county commission passed an ordinance early this year that banned discrimination against homosexuals, Miss Bryant, a Miami resident, became greatly disturbed.

About 40 other U.S. cities have enacted similar ordinances in recent years as homosexuals, encouraged by the civil rights movement, have begun to voice their demands. But none of the other cities has had an Anita Bryant.

A deeply religious mother of four school age children, she immediately began speaking out against the Miami ordinance, helped organize Save Our Children, then gathered enough petition signa-

tures to force a referendum, on the ordinance.

"If homosexuality were the normal way," she asserted, "God would have made Adam and Bruce."

Miss Bryant's national reputation and her strong ties to the more fundamentalist wing of the Baptist Church have enabled Save Our Children to raise about $200,000 for its antihomosexual campaign. At least a third of the money has been raised outside Florida.

The controversy has cost Miss Bryant some entertainment engagements and has made Florida citrus growers a bit edgy. But she has refused to back off and now is

helping Save Our Children open a Washington office.

The leading figure in the Coalition for Human Rights, Miami's main homosexual group, is John W. Campbell, a well-to-do operator of a chain of 40 gay baths.

"Unless we lose badly on Tuesday," he said, "Anita could well be the best thing that has ever happened to gays. She's mobilized us all over the country. The issue is really out in the open now. There's no turning back. It has to be faced."

The coalition has raised almost $300,000 for the Miami battle, perhaps half of the money outside of Florida. Homosexuals in New York have held fund raising dances. In San Francisco, the hat has been passed repeatedly in "gay" bars, most of which refuse to sell Florida orange juice.

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Miami has urged church members to vote to repeal the ordinance. On the other side, the gay coalition got voters' lists from the Democratic party to use in a telephone campaign.

Several members of the Netherlands parliament placed an ad in a newspaper here saying Dutch children had not been harmed by a gay rights law.