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Gay rights leaders Alan M. Rockway, left, Melodie Moorehead and Bob Kunst join hands yesterday as they prepare to fight for passage of an ordinance in Dade County, Fla.'s November elections that would outlaw discrimination based on politics, race, color, sexual preference and other factors.

Associated Press

Gay activists in Miami area place new rights ordinance on the ballot

MIAMI (AP) The Miami area is in for another gay rights battle.

The fight opened yesterday with petitioners, led by a homosexual rights advocate, forcing onto the Nov. 7 ballot a broad new equal opportunity ordinance that would ban discrimination based on a wide range of factors including "sexual or affectional preferences.'

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In including those four words, this proposal would be similar to a measure repealed in a bitter and well-publicized referendum in 1977, with the opposition led by singer Anita Bryant.

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The new proposal, however, would include other categories of discrimination for example, against pregnant women, union members and people whose native language is not English.

Robert Kunst, who helped lead the homosexual rights movement in 1977 and helped write the new proposed ordinance, said that "this is not a gay issue or a gay rights ordinance, but rather a full equality of opportunity law ... that recognizes the special problems in discrimination faced by students, veterans, people in the military, pregnant women and

those, particularly in Miami's Latin community, who need to be protected against discrimination due to native language."

Homosexual-rights activists succeeded in getting 10,000 signatures on petitions for the new

amendment.

Although Miss Bryant was not available immediately for comment, her husband-manager, Robert Green, promised a new fight. His wife, he said, "is not going to back down" this time. "We're dealing with a bunch of egomaniacs they're only out to glorify themselves."