PRIDE GUIDE 1996 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE A-9

'I don't think the decision prejudges either the military or marriage cases'

Continued from page A-7

them resolved.

I don't think that [the Romer decision] prejudges what will happen with gays in either the military or marriage cases, but I think that it gives a good block to build on— because it acknowledges that laws that adversely affect gay people may be based on animosity.

I mean, just that acknowledgement gives you a way of getting a court to take seriously how close the reasons for the initiative are to the purpose set out for the initiative. Basically it's just important that one can show that those reasons are insufficient and then move on to "animosity.” I think if you just argue animosity alone, then somebody could come up with some reasons that aren't necessarily reflective of animosity, and that would be more difficult.

In his dissent, Justice Scalia seemed quite obsessed with Bowers v. Hardwick [the 1986 Supreme Court decision which upheld Georgia's sodomy law]. In writing the Amendment 2 opinion, Justice Kennedy seemed to simply ignore Bowers.

What do you think the significance of Bowers not being mentioned in the majority opinion is?

Well, I think what the Court wanted, and what I think it achieved, was a very clear statement about this case. And it didn't spend a lot of time dealing with what the dissent was saying, it didn't spend a lot of time dealing with other cases, and I think this is one of the things that gives [this decision] its strength.

The Court could have spent pages going through why Bowers was either like or unlike this case. I think a lot of the forcefulness of the opinion would have been gone. So I'm not sure from this case you could say that Bowers would be overruled were it considered by the Court today, but then again, Bowers wasn't before the Court. I said in oral

arguments that I didn't think the Court had to overrule Bowers to rule our way, because I didn't want to suggest to the Court that we could only win if Bowers were overruled. Basically, what the Court decided was that it didn't have to deal with Bowers.

What is the chance after Romer that the Court will be willing in the future to overrule Bowers, and should this even be a goal in future legal challenges by gays?

I think in order to overrule it, one would best wait until one was prosecuted under one of those state [sodomy] laws.

But I think we've got the votes to overrule it.

Has your life changed dramatically as a result of this success?

Well, I've had to do several events, a lot relating to reporting to the plaintiffs, the school board, a lot of that. But other than that, it's pretty well finished. And of course the news media disappears quickly, it's sort of a one-day phenomenon except for people that have later deadlines. So it's really quieted down.

But I've got a lot of work to do that's been on the back burner during Amendment 2.

Well, you've got to have all the confidence in the world with the renewed knowledge you're such an incredible lawyerI'm a very lucky lawyer!

You've done a wonderful job educating the courts about equal rights. Have you also been educated as a result of your work on this case? Is there anything you have learned through this victory-about the legal process, about the Supreme Court, about gay rights-that you didn't know before you volunteered for this fight?

I've learned thousands upon thousands of things!

What I would really like gay people, and people in general to know, is how much incredible support there is out there. You know, gay rights issues are looked upon as

G.I.F.T. / PRIDE

Saturday June 8, 1996

being somehow so terribly controversial that people have to hide from them, and what I learned is that there are enormous numbers of people of very good will, both gay and straight, who are willing to work on educating other people, work on trying to stop things like Amendment 2. It didn't work in Colorado [to defeat Amendment 2] but boy, have we had incredible support in this

case.

Everyone I asked to help, expert witnesses, people doing all sorts of little things here and there, said "yes." And the reactions to the decision in this state... even the conservative members of Congress are saying "well, yeah, Amendment 2 was so bad that the Supreme Court probably did all right on this." And so, I think what I really learned that I want to convey on to other people is that taking on one of these issues is something for which I think in most communities, if there's a controversy, there'll be a lot more support that you think there's going to be.

We need to hear that.

KELLIE GIBBS

UN Fighting CLIP

ID for your

COLORADO LEGAL INITIATIVE PROJECT

Jean Dubofsky speaks to the press after the decision was announced.

Well, people are not Lone Rangers. There is support outside the gay community, and it's incredibly important to look for that support and link up with it because lots of people don't learn about problems until they actually talk with someone about them, and the straight community doesn't necessarily know about what's going on without somebody being willing to come out and start

talking about things. I think the gay community may not be completely comfortable with the idea that there's a whole lot of support out there, because people for so long have been afraid to ask.

The very best thing that I think has come from this whole case is that it's an opportunity to educate people-both about the way the court system and civil rights laws work and about gay issues-all kinds of gay is-

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