Leslie Durgin, Mayor of Boulder, Colorado;
Deborah Fort and Ann Skinner-Jones, DNA Productions, Santa Fe, New Mexico;
Ann Sebren, Boulder Organization for Nondiscrimination, Boulder, Colorado; and
John Barry, Colorado Dialogue Project, Denver, Colorado.
Working Paper 94-1, February, 1994.
University of Colorado, Boulder
This paper was written with a small grant from the Conflict Resolution Consortium, University of Colorado. Funding for the Consortium and its Small Grants Program was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The statements and ideas presented in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Conflict Resolution Consortium, the University of Colorado, or the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. For more information, contact the Conflict Resolution Consortium, Campus Box 327, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0327. Phone: (303) 492-1635, e-mail: crc@cubldr.colorado.edu.
Copyright (C) 1994. Conflict Research Consortium. Do not reprint without permission.
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This session began with Deborah Fort and Ann Skinner-Jones discussing and previewing their new documentary video, entitled "The Great Divide."
Deborah Fort: Let me first give a brief introduction to the tape to put it in context--then we'll show a couple parts of it. Our intention in producing The Great Divide was to document the current debate over civil rights for gays and lesbians as an issue of moral conflict. The first part of the video highlights the moral arguments on both sides of the debate, and shows clearly the intensity of the feelings which people have regarding these issues. In the second section of the tape, we present some of the ways that people with different perspectives are impacted by this conflict, and, then lastly, we show how they are dealing with the conflict.
We started taping in Oregon last fall, right before the Ballot Measure 9 election. We also taped in New Mexico, California, and Colorado. In all of these places we were trying to show how divisive gay rights legislation is, regardless of its intended purpose. In New Mexico we had a Senate bill to amend the human rights amendment by adding the words "sexual orientation" to that amendment. It was a very controversial issue. That is where the title "The Great Divide" came from. We see this conflict as something that is dividing families, churches, and communities.
It is also an issue that people have very different world views on. So similar to the Great [Continental] Divide, opinions are going in opposite directions. This division is not just happening between the two major poles, but it is also happening within the gay and lesbian community, and within the opposing community. That community is difficult to label or categorize. It is not just the religious right community, because it includes others as well. You could call it the community that opposes gay rights and it is a community which has deep internal divisions as well.
Our intention was not to provide an answer to this conflict with this tape, because, by its nature, it requires multiple answers. Rather, we simply tried to present the issue of civil rights for all people, including lesbians and gay men and show how people are dealing with the issue.
Ann Skinner-Jones: The tape is designed to be a catalyst for discussion within both the lesbian and gay community, where there are great conflicts and divisions, and also to encourage both sides to take a look at the conflict and to come together and talk. We are interested in looking at how people communicate, and we hope this tape will help people communicate in new ways.
The tape is divided into three sections, so that each section may be presented and then a discussion can follow. Today, we are just going to show a brief part of the beginning section, and some of the end. The beginning introduces the moral conflict. Here you will see examples of diatribe where people are yelling, there's a lot of finger pointing and that sort of thing. The middle section shows how this conflict is affecting people. The end illustrates what people are doing about the conflict. The end of the tape is where we talk about the constructive dialogue that has taken place on this issue--ways to get people talking and listening to each other in a meaningful way. The whole tape is sixty minutes long.
We hope as we travel with the film, and through discussions around the screening of "The Great Divide," it will become part of a process of developing new models for the constructive approaches to conflict.
[At this point, Deborah and Ann showed parts of The Great Divide. A summary of the segments shown follows.]
* * *
A narrator opens The Great Divide with the following statement: "Across the United States, from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine, anti-gay legislation is dividing families, communities, and churches, causing widespread fear and misunderstanding on both sides of the issue. In the fall of 1992, the country watched as Oregon and Colorado became the first states to test people's reaction to limiting rights for lesbians and gay men. In America today, the question has yet to be answered: do we believe in civil rights for all people?"
As the video goes on to show, many on the gay/lesbian side of the debate frame this as a civil rights controversy, while those opposed to gay rights see it as a moral or religious question. This difference, as well as others, has fueled a heated and protracted conflict in many communities across the country.
"It's touched a nerve in this city, it just has. There are so many people that believe that homosexuality is wrong, it is a moral issue to them. I don't see it that way." . . .
"The lesbian and gay controversy. . . is a struggle [between] a kind of humanist view of the world, and a very traditional religious view of the world. And its a deep difference. . . . Its intractable, very hard to solve. I think it is the major problem of our era."
The first part of the video documents the opposing opinions, spoken, not by actors or a narrator, but by real people who have become embroiled in the debate. Most of the speakers against gay rights speak of their moral or religious beliefs:
"God specifically says to his people that being homosexual is wrong. I don't believe it should be forced upon people. I don't think we, as the heterosexual, the taxpayer, should have to support the gay movement. . . . I don't discriminate against actual minorities, but the homosexual race is not actually a minority race. I don't think it's right and I don't think that children should be brought up that way. It goes against everything that this country was made on. This country was built on morals, family values, and that is how I think it should stay."
"Homosexuality is a way of life. Christianity is a way of life. Homosexuality is invited to be taught in public schools that are funded through taxes. Where's Christianity? Its never asked. Its banned by law. Why does the law favor one, but bans the other? That's what I mean by special rights!"
Those on the other side of the conflict denounce the use of religion as a prop to validate homophobia:
"People try to judge other people and say it is in the name of God. It's not in the name of God. It's in the name of their uncomfortableness. They're not comfortable with it. They claim divine right. A lot of these people use divine right as an excuse for what they don't like. It's not right."
"Anti-gay rights legislation is a way to undo "civil rights laws for all despised groups using the rhetoric of patriotism." "The driving force behind the anti-gay rights struggle is simply hatred."
The differences between the sides are so deep, the video points out, that many people are unwilling to even listen to the other side, as this is seen as an "illegitimate compromise."
"On several instances we've gone to the Oregon Citizens' Alliance and said 'you know, we're really concerned about the kind of hatred that's being promoted' Can we get together and say openly that we stand for very different things, but we are unified in a call for people to desist from vandalism, from violence, from that whole climate that's being created. The woman that I extended the invitation to initially said 'that's a great idea!' She was a little bit skeptical, like 'why are you making this invitation, what's behind this?' But very excited, and I thought, 'Oh bravo for us! We're moving ahead.' And then she called back and said 'I'm really not a decision maker. And I needed to go to the decision maker of our local Oregon Citizen's Alliance, who happens to be my husband, and she was very sad. She said, 'we cannot join with you in unity.' That would be an admission that we have any common ground with you, and we cannot do that.."
Yet other people have been willing to listen to the other side, when a safe atmosphere was established to do that. The video shows segments of a dialogue process utilized in Oregon, site of the very divisive Proposition 9 battle. Facilitators helped people from both sides come together to discuss their views and their fears. While the dialogues often did not change minds, they did enable the participants to feel more comfortable with people who held different views or voted differently on the issue of gay rights.
The video closes by noting that this struggle is a journey that cannot be finished--it is a way of life. There will always be people who value differences, some who tolerate differences, and others who won't tolerate difference at all. Dialogues can help people understand each other better; they can help people talk to others in more constructive ways, but the core issues, the core arguments, on both sides, remain.
* * *
Skinner-Jones: I was going to tell you about an experience I had this week when I showed the tape in its entirety to a class on the campus of the University of New Mexico. The audience was primarily lesbian and gay students. They really got on my case for even suggesting that anyone should try come together to find common ground: "They're liars. They're bigots. They're horrible. I'm not even going to give them any of my time." So this is my question: "How do you respond to that? How do we respect all parties engaged in this dilemma?"
Leslie Durgin: I actually did go through that stage in the height of this battle about the amendment. But now, what really strikes me is that we ought not stop the dialogue. We really need to continue the conversation. As the last person shown on the tape correctly says, "This is not the end."
I am confident that in Colorado we will win our lawsuit, which challenges the constitutionality of the Amendment, and it may go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But that doesn't mean that feelings have changed. In the hope of changing understanding and educating people, we ought to continue the discussion.
I do not think that we ought to compromise our values, however. Carrying on a conversation does not necessarily mean that we will compromise on the specific language in a bill or, in our case, in the Amendment, or give up our lawsuit. Conversation is worthwhile, but we need to balance that with some understanding about whether compromise means giving up something that you firmly believe in and, in our case, believe is unconstitutional.
Ann Sebren: I would add another distinction. There is a big difference between dialogue and debate. If the two sides are to engage in productive dialogue, we are going to need help; there has to be some mediation. When left to our own devices, we often end up with name calling, with both sides talking at the same time, with nobody really listening to each other; nobody defining the language. It often lapses into a real mess.
Also, we need to define what is debatable and what is not debatable. Speaking from a lesbian perspective, my right to exist is not debatable. I'm not interested in having a debate about my right to exist under the rubric of a "conversation." That is not going to be helpful. Thus, we have to define what we are dialoging about very carefully.
Audience member: What do you think is debatable?
Sebren: One of the first things that comes to mind would be the accusations which we have been levelling at each other. Much of the rhetoric coming from the pro-Amendment 2 side or the Ballot Measure 9 side is based on non-factual information. It is fear mongering. It is not based on the real lives of the people that are being talked about.
This doesn't mean that there may not be some legitimate criticism which could be made about the gay and lesbian community. There are some things we might want to look at in our own community. Likewise, when we aim a barrage of accusations at the other side, we have to recognize that a lot of what we say, too, is also finger pointing and making huge generalizations: "All right-wing people are bigoted, fascist etc. . ." We shouldn't say those things, yet, we tend to lapse into that mode.
But there may be some truth to some of those accusations. Just as there are some things that we, in the lesbian and gay community, need to look at, there may also be some truth which the opposing group might want to examine. We both need to examine what is being said to see what is truly factual and what isn't.
Moderator: John, do you want to add to this discussion? Can you tell us what you are doing with the Colorado Dialogue Project?
John Barry: The Colorado Dialogue Project is just beginning. We are a small group of five social workers and therapists in Denver who got interested in the dialogue process, especially as it might be applied to this issue. Last January, I went through training at the Cambridge Family Institute, and now we are trying to adapt some of the things I learned from them into our own situation in Colorado surrounding the gay rights controversy.
As I see it, the media in Colorado really created a "great divide." No one in the media is talking about this issue in a useful way.
I contacted some of my colleagues and started talking about putting something together to help people somehow address these issues in more constructive ways. I got in touch with the folks in Cambridge, took their training, and now we are in the process of putting together a model which, in some ways, may look like some of the dialogues in the film. We are trying to create a resource which groups can use to deal with the issues that have been created by Amendment 2.
For instance, I was hearing stories about processes that were going on in various professional organizations, communities, churches, schools, etc. These groups were all facing decisions about how they were going to respond to Amendment 2. Were they going to support the boycott? Were they going to come out with some sort of statement? There were all these little, invisible, silent processes going on that we didn't hear about in the media.
Let me give you an example. I heard a story that the Colorado (or maybe the Denver Bar Association) had a big uproar about whether they were going to have their annual get together, which they have done every year, down at the Broadmoor [which was a boycott target]. This is one example of how this issue actually plays out in the professional arena, and there are similar examples which apply to families and churches. These are the kind of things that I would like to read about more in the papers.
Right now we are in the process of organizing focus groups with people on various sides of the issues which underlie Amendment 2. We are not really dealing directly with Amendment 2, because I think that the controversies over 9 and 2 are not really about 9 and 2, per se. Rather, the controversies are really about a lot of issues, which, in my opinion, have to do with gender, sexuality, and a number of other things. Most of these controversies don't really have to do with laws, but that is sort of where they come together. What is underneath the law itself are these other controversial topics and issues which are very volatile, very deep, and have a lot of strong feelings connected to them.
So based on this perspective, we hold focus groups to gather information in order to help us put together a model, which can be used as a resource for groups when the second wave of Amendment 2 comes. The model creates an opportunity for people to start talking about these controversial topics--topics other than the law itself and whether Amendment 2 is going to be thrown out of court--by putting them on the table.
I would like to respond a little to the video. First of all, I have a lot of respect for its creators. This was a wonderful piece of work. However, what I noticed in the video was that the people who were interviewed on the anti-gay rights side of the issue tended to be very well known people, who were spouting the party line. On the other side were people who were more, regular, everyday folks--people who I felt I could give a lot of more empathy to. What was missing, and maybe this was the whole point of the video, were the people in the middle. There is really a great middle, as well as a great divide. The people in this middle group are the ones that don't get spoken about even when people talk about dialogue.
What usually happens is that a lot people who are coming together around this issue are on one side or the other. However, the bilateral structure of dialogue just speaks to the problem itself. The problem which remains is that there really isn't a place where all the thousands and millions of people who really do have grey areas, who have questions about their stance, can really come together to talk about all the issues.
The video touched upon this a little bit when that one minister said "I wouldn't have a gay or lesbian outreach worker, but I wish it was 1959 and I didn't have deal with this." There are a great many people who really feel that way. Context is very important and there is no context for people in the middle to think and talk that way or to develop their thoughts. That is what I see our project as trying to accomplish.
Moderator: How do you think, we, as a community--you can interpret community as you wish, as Boulder, as Colorado or even as the entire United States--how do we bring folks back together? I want to go back to the same question you asked earlier, "If we want to continue the conversation." as Leslie said, "how do we get people to the table? What if they don't want to come?"
Fort: What you bring up is the interesting part of the dynamic of the whole situation which applies to both Ballot Measure 9 and Amendment 2: there were very visible people who were behind those ballot measures, and they had a very clearly- defined community behind them. On the other side, all the people we had were in some way "key" people, too, but they weren't visible in the media, so they aren't known. The other side is a very diverse community that doesn't have the one key person that you can identify like Will Perkins or Kevin Tebedo.
That is also a problem when you try to get people together. Part of what we want to do with this tape is set up situations where it is screened in a fairly informal setting, where we can create a situation where people from various sides of the issue can come together and feel comfortable. That is probably not in an university setting. When we screened the video in Portland, we were at the Portland Art Museum. Again, this is not a setting that would have been comfortable for the OCA. So, getting people together in a neutral location is a big problem.
Audience member: Can you tell me more about the community conversations that you had in Portland?
Skinner-Jones: Yes. The community conversations were held in rural high schools. We pretty much followed the dialogue model established by the Cambridge, Massachusetts Public Conversations Project. [To learn more about this model, see Working Paper 94-9 which describes the Public Conversations Project in detail.]
I believe a lot of the conflict has to do with the difference between a rural and urban setting. There are a lot of class issues involved. If it is possible to organize a community conversation in a rural high school, where you provide a safe environment for all sides of the issue to come together, some from both sides will come and some won't come. But for those people who live small communities, where there might be only one grocery store, it's very uncomfortable for individuals to walk into that grocery store knowing that people on aisle six hate them and those on aisle four think they are OK. It is a very, very painful situation when friends that you have known for years and years no longer speak to you after the ballot initiatives. The community conversations based on the Public Conversations Project dialogue model were successful. That process of going out into rural communities made a huge difference.
Just so you know, in Oregon it took $2 million to defeat Ballot Measure 9 and very, very broad-based coalitions. Where the new far right Christian movement (exclusive) may have this single-point audience, those of us who might call ourselves progressives (inclusive), have this very, very broad, diverse set of people. We don't have one way to pinpoint them, to involve them in the campaign. Besides that, we do not have the media savvy that the far right does.
Moderator: The dialogue model is very interesting and promising, but it only affects those few people who engage in the dialogue. What about the others? How can we work with all the people in a community, to start to bring communities back together?
Leslie Durgin: In Boulder, it feels like we have an awful lot of talk. I'm not sure we have a lot of dialogue, and particularly in the last year, we've had a lot of heated talk and not a whole lot of listening. But, at least in this community, many people do want conversations, do want dialogue.
I may be taking the Boulder experience and expanding it (perhaps incorrectly) to other parts of Colorado as well. But it seems to me that people are perplexed about Amendment 2. Many people really believed that they were doing the right thing in voting for Amendment 2, and they are shocked to rediscover the things we all learned in the eighth grade (and have now mostly forgotten), for instance that our country is a constitutional democracy (that a majority rule democracy occurs within the context of the U.S. Constitution so the majority's vote does not always prevail.) These people are now saying, "I don't understand how the thing I really believed was right, and I had been told was moral, suddenly runs up against the founding fathers' notion of the U.S. Constitution."
This creates an opportunity for discussion, because there is conflict between two strongly held beliefs: morality and the Constitution. This really creates an opportunity, if we are strategic about it, to start some conversation about how morality, however defined, operates in a constitutional democracy.
But we need to do this in small groups, and Boulder is not the place to start. Certainly, if I were from Colorado for Family Values, I would not only find the University uncomfortable, I would find Boulder a very uncomfortable place to be as well, just as I find it very uncomfortable to be in Colorado Springs right now. If we could really figure out a way where people who are struggling with this issue could unite in a more neutral environment, other than either of these two cities, we could start the conversation.
Audience member: What would a more neutral environment be?
Durgin: Brush. [A small, rural community in Eastern Colorado] Quite seriously, a community that is not so strongly identified with this movement on either side. Some geographic area that is not quite so volatile on the subject and not so identified with "how right they/we are" on either side of this issue.
I have really found that, throughout the state, and not only on this topic, most people want to be involved in the decisions that affect their lives. They definitely want to be involved in the decisions that affect their community and their schools (whether or not they are parents). For the most part, people are really struggling in some way, though not very publicly, with what happened in this state. Was Amendment 2 the right thing or not? How does it fit in with this broader perspective of the Constitution? It is my faith, as an elected official, that people do want to do the "right thing," whatever that is. So I believe there are people who would be open to such a conversation.
Audience member: There is a fundamental, inherent problem here. The problem is that once we begin to litigate, we have positioned ourselves. We cannot litigate a medium path. You are talking east and west. If we are going to litigate whether this law is constitutional, then we are back to the question that Heidi Burgess keeps asking, "How can we get people to sit down and discuss something and be open to acceptance, versus using a power strategy, or pursuing the litigation model? You can't do both. Here in Colorado we are trying to do both. That is an inherent problem.
Durgin: That is, in fact, one of the reasons why I was saying that it may not be an appropriate discussion in Boulder. The City of Boulder has chosen to litigate [to challenge the constitutionality of the Amendment]. We have taken a strong lead in that. But, I don't believe we had a choice, and I'm proud of the choice we made in Boulder. I don't believe that some rights are open to mediation. We believe strongly that we needed to take a lead in litigation. But for that reason, Boulder would not be an appropriate place to try to open up the dialogue.
Audience member: That is the fundamental problem, because before we can solve this, we have to understand exactly what is obtainable in a resolution. Litigation pits people against people. In litigation, there is no a coming together; there is no common ground. Litigation sets the tone for win/lose versus what we describe as win/win. I love Colorado, and I really want to see others who want to live Colorado be able to live with my standard of living and the freedom to make their own decisions. How would I be able to help institute a win/win situation for our community instead of the win/lose situation?
Barry: One thing that needs to happen is to stop talking about Amendment 2, and start talking about the issues that are underneath it. The questions would be: What are the issues? Where would people be comfortable talking about those issues? What could we do to help them do that? All these conversations are happening all the time anyway in families and in communities. If we try to create a community meeting, or some sort of formal event around this issue per se, where people come together in an artificial way, it will come down to a debate about Amendment 2. But, if you go to the community groups that exist, you can dig deeper than that--to the underlying issues. This is where progress can be made. That is the idea of our project. We want to go out and find the communities that are already existing, and to help people within those communities engage in a constructive dialogue about gay issues.
Audience member: (Jackie, a member of Colorado Dialogue Project) We are a very diverse group of people ourselves--the five of us. One of the things we did was sit down and share our own points of view. That is one of the things that we are trying to get at here: the history, not the issue itself, but of the people. What is it that has previously occurred, which explains how these people can stand up and take the positions that they did? Part of my interest with the Colorado Dialogue Project, is not to change a person's point of view, but to hear how they got to that point of view. That is what I think dialogue is.
The alternative is to just walk away, leaving people feeling embittered towards one another. An example that I have in mind was when the Montview Presbyterian Church in Park Hill in Denver was hosting the Gay Men's Choir. Some people in the congregation began to say, "We don't think we should be hosting them. They shouldn't be able to come Wednesday night and sing here." The minister told them, "That is not open for discussion, they are coming." I would like to find out which members of that congregation felt that the choir should not be allowed to sing. The minister just cut them off, there was no dialogue.
We don't have to think in terms of large communities, towns or anything. We can go into a place like Montview and say, "We would like to hear what those members of the congregation were thinking and feeling." What we are trying to do in the Colorado Dialogue Project is not just to walk out and leave people feeling embittered toward one another. Rather, we want to set up a structure that allows them to talk and to listen. We want everyone to be able to say that they heard the other side, so they walk away thinking. They may not, necessarily, change their behavior, but maybe at least they can confront their fears.
Someone before asked, "What is debatable?" Ann Sebren talked about fear mongering. Well, let's find out what peoples' fears are about. Let's let them dialogue about them. Let's let ourselves dialogue about them. What are we afraid of? What are they afraid of? That is where I would like to see our project go.
Durgin: I would like to ask a question. It sounds like, from what you have just described, the purpose of the dialogue is to simply get people's ideas, fears, or whatever out in a safe environment, and to hear the other side, which will then cause people to think. Is the purpose of the conversation not necessarily to come to an agreement or change behaviors, but to simply be able to hear the other side?
Sebren: I would also think that in that setting, part of what is happening, sort of implicitly, would be a discovery of what some of the common ground is, because while we may not share the same fears, we can both admit to being afraid. That is a common ground. It is kind of subtle, but it is still important.
I attended the Colorado for Family Values' seminar that was held here in Boulder back in the spring, and I came away from that deeply touched, because I went there feeling terrified. I had walked into the other side's camp. I just went in and sat down and listened. I listened to the conversations around me and I heard such fear that I almost cried. I thought, "My, God. They are as terrified as I am, and I am sitting right here next to them." Yet, I could not, in that moment, do anything about my realization, because I didn't feel safe to do so. But had there been an appropriate setting, we would have found an immediate common ground.
Audience member: Another thing that was said earlier is that this debate has been characterized by people spreading nonfactual information. Well, what I heard in this video was these people felt that they had factual information. They really feel that. So it would seem that a dialogue would be a good way to get to the bottom of some of that. Everyone could agree that they value factual information, so then they could share what they believed to be fact and fiction, which might help eliminate some of the fear.
Skinner-Jones: I think that is why the dialogue process works in a small community--it is in the best interest of all the people involved to come together to reach understanding and to dissipate the fear. It is really based on a community need, rather than an individual's need. But, that may also be why some people choose not to participate.
Fort: I think this notion of fear is quite common. However, I do question the term, "common ground," because accepting the notion that we have anything in common might actually be somewhat defeating. Maybe there could be some other language designed that means the same thing, such as shared concerns.
I really question whether the Supreme Court is the best way to deal with these issues, although I absolutely support the notion that we have to legislate this at the moment. But, in terms of the broader issues, I really question why there is such hatred for people with differences in our society today. If the Supreme Court were to rule in favor of Amendment 2, I am concerned about the possible backlash, similar to what we have already seen since 1963, with the outlawing of school prayer, and in 1964 with the civil rights acts.
Skinner-Jones: I think it is very important to put forth the notion of respecting difference. One problem within the lesbian and gay community is that people will not take the other side seriously. By demonstrating an unwillingness to listen to them, we just wave our little flags and do our diatribes and our finger pointing and our name calling, but we get as Alice in Wonderland said, "behinder and behinder."
Audience member: Why do you question the term "common ground?"
Skinner-Jones: Because I think there is an implication in that language that there is some agreeing with, or valuing the other side, rather than simply acknowledging that we can come together and discuss similar topics. I'm more familiar with the rhetoric in Oregon. I would suggest that both sides are concerned with the same things. They are concerned with the power of the state, they are concerned about their children's future, they are concerned about the future of the world. They say the same things. But they approach them in fundamentally different ways, and the end result-- what they do--is very different. But the idea that you come together to share a "common ground" demonstrates, for a far right fundamentalist, that you have too much in common with the gay community. Similarly, from the gay and lesbian perspective-- "common ground acknowledges that too much of my side is correct. Sallyann, do you want to elaborate on that?
Sallyann Roth [Member of the Cambridge Public Conversation Project]: Yes. Actually I want to go back to Heidi Burgess's question about people coming to the table. One of the first ideas we had at the Public Conversations Project was that it was important, initially, to not have people who had a strong constituency come to the table for conversations. We purposefully did not want to invite people who had a constituency to whom they had to be loyal, because we didn't want anyone to be worried about saying something that was could be seen by their constituencies as outside the boundaries of what was OK to speak publicly. We didn't want people to be preoccupied about causing big trouble by misspeaking, which could result in their losing community. So initially, we very purposefully didn't include those people at the far extremes. The idea that we had was something that John Mack refers to as second-tier diplomacy: if you include enough people who are not involved in a constituency at the highest levels, who therefore can be open and flexible in their conversation, then they can begin to develop different definitions of their relationship with the "other," and, in turn, these people will then, in some way, be able to influence other people in their community to be open to a different relationship with those people specifically defined as other. So we made a specific decision to not go with people at the very far extremes or at the "top" of their organization.
That was interesting because, after we had done this and received some publicity, we actually had two leaders on the abortion issue phone us and ask us if we would privately conduct a conversation between them. They were interested in speaking to each other, but afraid of how it might be taken by others in their "public" world if it were known that they had participated in such a dialogue. Some months after we facilitated that conversation, their writing and their work became a little bit different. Then they gave us permission to identify them, as having had the conversation. So we see it as a very long process and we think it is important not to think that it's imperative to get the people on the extremes or in leadership positions to participate initially.
The second thing that I wanted to respond to, had to do with ideas about "Why we think we have to get these people together to have these conversations?" The "so what" question- -it always comes up. One of the ways our group thinks about it has to do with the importance of creating an atmosphere through which people understand that on some level, they are part of a single community--the human community. Our goal is mostly to break down the stereotyping process by which people define the other as other, and as a result, they fail to see the other as self.
Audience member: There is a false dichotomy here that I wanted to correct. I really believe that litigation is inevitable in our modern democracy, and this amendment needs to be contested. If you had an amendment that said no special rights for blacks or no special rights for Hispanics, there would be no question that it needed to be contested. This one needs to be contested as well. This is simply a moral imperative; it is as clear as the moral imperative in an ethnic case.
But that is not inconsistent with the need for, or importance of, having a dialogue. I don't want the Supreme Court to put shackles on the debate. But I do think that we need to have a judicial determination about whether it is acceptable, in our Constitutional democracy, to have a law that says no local community, no state entity, no court may enforce laws against discrimination of people in Colorado. That is not inconsistent with the need to have a great deal of discussion about how people become reconciled in our societies--local, state-wide, and nation-wide--to different lifestyles issues, to different questions of value. And those debates are going to take a long time.
When there was discussion with advocates of Amendment 2 about whether or not they would compromise on some different language that might be less objectionable, they said no. They said "no," even to things that were totally unacceptable to the gay community. They said "no" because they had won. Why should they say "yes?" Why should there be a compromise? There is no imperative for there to be a compromise until we win the lawsuit. That is why there has to be a lawsuit.
Sebren: Two of the things you captured, that must have been a decision of editing, consciously or unconsciously, are people speaking about the need to just talk about their experiences and, out of that, to trust that they can talk about their fear. It is in that atmosphere, along with the idea of the small community and the rural community, where successful dialogue happens. I once went to a workshop where the speaker said, "Who is the person you hate the most? Who is the person you really, really can't stand? Dialogue with the other person and find that other person in yourself." In other words, find the Will Perkins in you, to which we all said, "no we never had that person in me." Maybe your next film could be about people talking about those experiences of "how did I come to the group that I entered into?" Then go on to show people talking about their fears. Before people can bring out their fears, there has to be both the trust and the ability to say this is who I am, and where I came from. It was just a terrific film.
Audience member: I would like to hear, more from Ann about the structure that you used in your rural community dialogues. I am really interested in what the process was. Was it small group discussion? Was it big groups trying to just get out what the issues were? How were your focus groups pulled together?
Skinner-Jones: Some of this will be described by Sallyann [in her session on the Public Conversations Project. See Working Paper 94-9. I'm most familiar with two situations that were in rural towns outside of Portland. The meeting place was the public high school. It started with a small group of people who are mediators who decided to do something along those lines. I'm not sure how they heard about the Public Conversations Project, but they did. And they also had personal friends who were members of a far right fundamentalist group. So they called their friends and said, "Do you think we could talk, and could we then call our friends and then get a bigger group to talk?" So it was personal telephone conversations, face-to-face conversations at the beginning to ask, "Do you think this is possible?" Most people felt that it was such a divisive issue for them, that continuing with the hostilities was a very uncomfortable way for them to live. They didn't like how it felt to be with people, who they used to think were nice, but who they now new had values which they couldn't stand. So they wanted to do something to work out these hostilities. It really was a one-to-one contact initially, and that just spread.
Some people were willing to meet and some weren't. Those that were came together at the high school. They used a very carefully defined structure--and I would really rather Sallyann tell you about it later today, so I don't misrepresent it. There are strict ground rules. Basically, the main thing was that people had to be willing to come together in a new way. A big part of it was a willingness to listen. At the high school they actually used a Native American tool, a talking stick, which went around the group. They took the large group and divided into small groups with sort of self-identified representatives from both sides of civil rights for lesbian and gay men.
Fort: I think it is also important in these groups to get away from a capitalist model where you are always looking at the bottom line and what the pay off is. In these groups, the focus is about the process, not substance. You are not looking at "in the end, how much did we accomplish? How much money did we make?" You really need to throw those notions out the window.
Skinner-Jones: Some of the ground rules involve giving up persuasion. You are not there to try to change someone else's mind. There were a series of questions and the first one was, "What are your greatest fears?" So it really was a lot about fear.
Barry: We are really at the beginning of our project so I can't really draw from experience, but I will share with you some of the ideas, our current hypothesis of what our program might look like. We really do want to get out of Denver, into small towns and cities. One way we thought of doing that was through a network of churches. We have some experience in Denver with a certain denomination, for example Methodist. We want to create a video about our approach. When people feel safe enough to let us do that, they could then distribute the video within their own network so other churches could find out about it. Then if someone somewhere else had a need, in Brush for example, and through their network they had seen this video, that might click and then they might call us.
What we are trying to do now is invite ourselves to focus groups. We are taking a very simple format, just asking people to let us listen to them, as they generally talk about what their feelings and thoughts may be related to this issue. When I say "this issue," it's important that you know we have even had trouble trying to define what we would identify as "this issue," whether we are going to say homosexuality, homophobia, sexuality issues, or sexual orientation. We are not sure about which words to use to identify the issues, so we kind of just go in and let people talk about whatever they want to talk about. We are not even trying to create a dialogue, as much as just listening to people, in order to find out for ourselves what the issues are which relate to homosexuality, to use just one example. As we hear about opportunities, for example, the conflict about the choir at the Montview Presbyterian Church, we will respond. It sounded like there may have been some opportunity there for us to call them up, and someone might have been interested. What was going on there was that some people felt shut out of that decision, that power, that control. Dialogue might have been helpful there. Right now we are trying to identify some people who are conservative about this issue from a religious point of view. For example, we are trying to see if we can get in touch with some people at the Denver Seminary. Also we have heard about people in the therapy community who are trying to "cure" homosexuals. We are going to see if we can approach them to see if they will tell us how they came to do this work and what their thoughts are. So that is where we are--at the very beginning. We are just listening right now.
Audience member: I think your approach is really great. The one person in history that took a similar approach and made it very successful was Gandhi--I suggest you look at his work, because the highly volatile issue of homosexuality is speaking to acceptance of diversity, which he addressed, too. I also think this ties into the Hispanic community in New Mexico, who are very closed to homosexuality. They need a broader view and an acceptance of diversity.
Skinner-Jones: One of the major points of our tape is that all oppression is connected and because of the connection, anti- gay legislation is an attempt to discriminate against all people. This is certainly one reason Ballot Measure 9 was defeated in Oregon. Homosexuality is a word that is on the lips of everyone in the United States these days--for better or for worse. We actually have Suzanne Farr saying this at the end of the tape. But, this is not a gay and lesbian issue. Rather, it is our belief that measures such as Amendment 2 and Ballot 9 are attempts to roll back all civil rights. We cannot be selective in our oppressions.
Audience member: We have been hearing from many of the members of the Colorado Dialogue Project that they are not outcome helpers. But when I listen to the structure they want to use--and the structure that was used in Oregon--it sounds like there is a behavior change being sought, a change from not listening to listening. It sounds like the goal is learning a process, or teaching a process, through a variety of approaches. Are there models for specific conflicts? Is there a protocol that I could get a hold of?
Skinner-Jones: I do have photocopies of the model that was used in Oregon for the high school debate and we could put you in touch with some of the people there. [Editor's note: More information about the dialogue model can be also obtained from Sallyann Roth's presentation and Consortium working paper 94-9 and directly from the Public Conversation Project in Cambridge, MA.]
I should say that following the community conversations, which participants felt were very successful, and the defeat of Ballot Measure 9, the communities are still suffering great divisiveness and a lot of backlash, particularly for the young people, which is very interesting.
Audience member: I have a legal question for Leslie Durgin. The Supreme Court has been very selective in which minority classes it will protect. If this eventually goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, and if the U.S. Supreme Court throws it out, do you think it would be because it would create a new protected class status such as race or would it be based on some other reason? What do you think the Supreme Court will do?
Durgin: Let me redirect your question to Joe de Raismes--who is the Boulder City Attorney [who was in the audience]:
Joe de Raismes: The theory that the Colorado Supreme Court upheld was not a suspect class theory. It was what is called a "fundamental rights theory," which allows citizens to seek protection under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This argument says that Amendment 2 interferes with fundamental rights, such as the right to vote, and to participate in the political process. This is unconstitutional under any conditions--even when it is not based upon someone's membership in a particular class or group. The Colorado State Board articulated some of the prior federal case law about the fundamental right to participate in the political process. It stated that Amendment 2 violates the fundamental right to participate in the political process of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. That is not a theory that has been recognized, as yet, by the United States Supreme Court. They will have to see to what extent the Colorado Supreme Court was right in doing that.
In addition, the Colorado Supreme Court sent the matter back to the District Court to determine whether there was a compelling state interest which could justify interfering with the fundamental rights to participate in the political process of gays, lesbians and bisexuals. That's a case that was just heard before Judge Bayless about two weeks ago and we await his decision. In addition, the suspect class issue has also been raised again. I don't want to comment on whether we are optimistic about that, but that certainly is a legitimate issue to place before the Supreme Court, because the only prior case dealt with behavior, not sexual orientation. Amendment 2 is specific to sexual orientation, not behavior. Thus, there are First Amendment issues that are very significant. It's our position, and an extremely defensible position, that the defendants have not shown any cause, much less compelling state interest, which would justify interfering with citizens' fundamental rights.
Moderator: Are there any other approaches to this conflict--besides the legal and dialogue that might help bring people back together?
Durgin: One of the things that we all know is that whatever your sexual orientation, we all have similar concerns. For example in this community, we all share concerns about growth and traffic, the school system, land use regulations. All those things are part of our lives in this community. They have nothing to do with whom we love, and how we choose to express that. So, that is another way in which we can pull back together as a community. We can look at the things that we do have in common, or the concerns that we have in common, and work together on solving community problems. In this way we can create partnerships that have nothing to do with who we love. We need to continue the discussion of gay rights, but we also need to move on to other areas as well.
Sebren: I would echo the same thing. There are lots of other issues beside the issue around gay and lesbian civil rights that gay and lesbian people care about and share with other people who live in the same town, the same county, the same state. I can only speak from a lesbian perspective, but the more that we get involved in growth and development issues, or youth violence issues or child abuse issues, or whatever other things we care about, the more we can network with other people. Often, we think we have nothing in common with other people, but when, in fact, we do.
I would also add that all of us need to be accountable for not reducing others, or allowing ourselves to be reduced by others, to just one facet of our lives. I don't like being reduced to lesbian. I say I am speaking from a lesbian's perspective here, because that is the topic of conversation. But, I am a teacher, I am a runner, I'm a friend, I'm a daughter, I'm an artist, I'm a taxpayer, I'm lots of things, and I share those things with lots of other people. I also am trying personally to be careful not to just reduce someone to Christian, far right, because they are also teacher, daughter, friend, artist. We do have places where we can talk about things that have nothing to do with this issue, even though we may have grave differences about this one issue.
Audience member: To follow on that, we create roles for ourselves and we create identities when we engage in politics in this country. That is just the way politics work. We can very easily get trapped by those roles. For me that is one of the major things that stands in the way of engaging in a dialogue on this issue, because I go into a room thinking, "I am lesbian, that's me, these people hate me because of this." Thus, I am not able to have any kind of meaningful dialogue.
But if I can set that aside and say that this is part of me, but not all of me, and I'm not going to get trapped by that, and I'm not going to trap somebody else in their role by labeling them, then maybe that's a way of thinking about that kind transition that might be helpful.
Audience member: I wasn't here to see the film earlier. I don't know how much it covered minorities in general, but I would like to share something with you. I belong to a lot of Hispanic organizations. This is a topic that is also very important to a lot of Hispanic groups in Denver. It is important that you try to arrange seminars and meetings with these groups, because there is a strong belief that Amendment 2 is not just talking about gay rights and lesbian rights, but all groups' civil rights. If these civil rights are taken away, there is no doubt in these organizations' minds that the same thing is going to start happening to the Hispanics, and the Blacks and the Asians. I really strongly urge you to try and confront that with a lot of the organizations and share your program.
Fort: The other part of that is that the far right is trying to separate communities of color. That is one of their major strategies.
Audience member: Not withstanding the seriousness of issues, I strongly believe in the power of humor to create dialogue. I haven't heard any mention of the power of humor, or the power of story, of theater, of drama. Basically we are dealing with fear, with perception, and beliefs--we can harken back to the effect of Archie Bunker in our culture. I perceive the value of that. There is a way to diffuse a lot of the seriousness with which we take ourselves, let alone our position. Using humor, story, or film allows people, especially kids and people who are just developing their belief systems, to see the lighter side of the whole issue.
Audience member: I have a problem with not hearing anybody say that we know the other side is wrong. I think that is a fact, and I think we have to acknowledge that. We probably do, still, have to find a way to communicate with the other side, not to convince them, but to convince the majority that we are right. I am not going to convince Will Perkins, but through creating a constructive dialogue with him, that makes me look good. It enables me to be able to sell myself and my side to the public.
Audience member: Ann Sebren spoke to that when she referred to her involvement in other issues and being involved not as a lesbian, but as a person in a community. That allows her to gain credibility with the right. When you are accepted as a person and trusted, it doesn't matter what your sexual preference is, because people have accepted you for your values. They won't judge you as much. So I think Ann's approach is totally right.
Glenda Russell [in the audience]: I think one of the things we haven't mentioned is the necessity for those of us in our respective communities to do real healing in those communities. I have data from over 600 gays, lesbians and bisexuals that indicate that we have enormously high rates of clinically diagnosable depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of Amendment 2. About three or four weeks ago, I was in Colorado Springs, where I talked a little about those data with a group of people who supported Amendment 2. Somebody in the audience asked me if I had done any research on what it felt like to be called a bigot or a hater? What were the psychological effects of that? I did not do that research, but I have no doubt that the divisiveness and the polarization of the campaign has had a negative impact on both sides.
So one of the most important things that we can do in our own communities is to help those members of our community to heal and stop feeling like victims (though we certainly were in a victimizing process), and to stop giving power to whatever the other side is by making them "giant" and "evil" and "superhuman," as if there is something irreconcilably different about them, as if they are coming from another planet, essentially representing another species.
Audience member: In response to the video, I'd like to mention that we have had a lot of ill-feelings in this state between the Hispanic community and the gay community, because the gay community did not support the Hispanics efforts to defeat the English-Only Amendment. Many Hispanics in Denver ask "why should we help you out, when you didn't help us out?" First there was the English Only Amendment and now we have Amendment 2. What will be next? We have to listen to that side, and begin to reflect on this as a broader issue.
Dorothy Rupert (Colorado State House Representative): I just came from a march with the UMAS group, a demonstration of civil disobedience, and I wanted to speak to the role of humor and how it changed the people who participated. We met first on the campus, at the fountain area. People were talking and others were listening. But then we banded together and left campus and marched down the middle of Broadway, stopping cars clear back to Baseline, and then we went over in front of the Hill. Almost immediately, with the humor and the sense of coming together around the theater, it changed the feeling of the group to one of community--that this is something we were going to do together. I was really impressed about how really different it was, how different it felt. I couldn't agree more that the Hispanics feel very much on the outside of this issue.
Durgin: There is a project going on in Boulder that many of you may not know about that we are particularly proud of. That is called "Value and Diversity." Glenda Russell is really the creator of that, and I wonder if it would be appropriate if you would take a minute or two to talk about it.
Russell: The full name of the project is "Value and Diversity: Education on Homophobia and Heterosexism, A Project of the City of Boulder." You can imagine the political discussions about how to name the project. The project came out of a joint effort of the City's Human Relations Commission and the City's Office of Human Rights. The project is run out of the Office of Human Rights. We have a group of volunteers who represent all sexual orientations who go talk in factual, calm, intelligent, cogent ways about the issues of sexual orientation free of charge to any group that requests them. They will talk at whatever level people need to talk. Some people want sort of didactic kinds of presentations. Other people want more experiential sorts of presentations. The project has been operating for over a year, after more than a year of prior planning. We are getting really good evaluations from groups about the sort of calm, non-threatening way people are being able to get information about sexual orientation, not in a dichotomized, polarized kind of way, but in a way that people can deal with, think about, reject if they want, not get in fights about. It is a wonderful project and an amazing project for the city to be sponsoring.
Skinner-Jones: I think it is really important to listen to what the other side is saying. We might want to talk about discrimination, yet the far right wants to talk about how really disgusting the act of homosexuality is to them. We need to be willing to listen to that. I also want to support the notion that if someone sat on the street corner for us opposing Amendment 2, and we are not out there on their picket lines for another issue, there is something wrong.
(1) This paper is an edited transcript of a panel (Leslie Durgin, Deborah Fort, Ann Skinner-Jones, Ann Sebren, and John Barry) for the Intractable Conflict/Constructive Confrontation Project on November 6, 1993. Funding for this Project was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the University of Colorado. All ideas presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Consortium, the University, or Hewlett Foundation. For more information, contact the Conflict Resolution Consortium, Campus Box 327, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0327. Phone: (303) 492-1635, e-mail: crc@cubldr.colorado.edu.
© 1994. Conflict Resolution Consortium. Do not reprint without permission.