BOULDER, COLO. — It's easy to condemn discrimination overseas. It's harder to confront it in your own back yard. Just ask Colorado's governor.
In 1985, Roy Romer, then state treasurer, "divested" $100 million of Colorado's money invested in companies doing business in South Africa. That would help send the message that Colorado deplored apartheid, Romer said.
Romer, as governor of Colorado, rightfully denounced passage of Amendment 2, which writes discrimination into the state constitution. But this time his indignation is half-hearted.
Since the vote, civil-rights groups nationwide have organized an economic boycott of Colorado. Barbra Streisand, Whoopi Goldberg and Jonathan Demme, among other entertainment figures, have endorsed the idea and won't spend Christmas in Colorado ski country. Other critics include the National Education Assn., the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the National Council for Social Studies and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which last week canceled plans to hold its annual meeting in Colorado Springs next year.
So far, a handful of other organizations have canceled their convention plans in Colorado. Philadelphia, New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco and Seattle have voted to take their business elsewhere or condemned the Colorado vote. And Los Angeles will not reimburse city employees for official trips to the state.
All this, according to an economist at the University of Colorado, will likely hurt. Arizona, for example, lost an estimated $500 million in tourist business after it rejected legislation establishing a holiday to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The economic pain that Colorado may feel will probably not approach Arizona's loss, because of business commitments made long before the vote on Amendment 2. But state officials are worried about a spreading boycott, which has already cost the state about $10 million.
And Coloradans shouldn't kid ourselves about what happened on Election Day--they knew what they were doing. Colorado for Family Values, a right-wing, fundamentalist Christian group, prattled about the need to ban "special rights" for homosexuals. Ostensibly, Amendment 2 prohibits "protected-class status"--affirmative action--for homosexuals.
This was a ruse. Gays don't want affirmative action. They never sought "protected-class status."
