Both supporters and opponents of state Ballot Measure 9, which would bar schools from encouraging or sanctioning homosexuality, are casting worst-case scenarios about the outcome of the Nov. 7 general election.
José Solano, a Portland high school teacher who supports Measure 9, worries that if the measure fails, schools will continue encouraging acceptance of homosexuality and ignore the possibility that gay students could change and become heterosexual through counseling or spiritual guidance.
“We have students who are swearing that they’re born that way, that they can’t change, that we can’t help them,” Solano said. “They’ll believe it, they won’t want to change and they’ll face the health hazards of the gay lifestyle.”
Opponents of the measure, however, counter that its passage would brand non-heterosexual students as targets and could lead to higher rates of depression and teen suicide.
University senior Gabrielle Hendel, co-director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual Alliance, declined to give an opinion of the measure but recalled how it felt to attend a school she said was unsupportive of non-heterosexual students.
“I didn’t come out during high school because I felt so isolated — I went to a strict Catholic high school,” she said. “There was one outwardly gay man, and he was completely ostracized by the students, teachers, faculty and the board. I didn’t want to go through what he went through. Had there been some support, it would have been easier.”

OCA BACK IN BUSINESS
Not since 1994, when the Oregon Citizens Alliance last placed an initiative on the ballot, has Oregon’s political scene been the battleground for gay rights. After years of lacking funding, the OCA is back in the fray, and the organization’s supporters are expecting its first statewide victory.
A recent survey sponsored by The Oregonian and Portland’s KATU-TV found that 47 percent of Oregonians support Measure 9, 48 percent oppose it and 5 percent are undecided.
OCA founder and director Lon Mabon said he was “very excited” about the poll results.
“We’ve never showed that high on any of our measures this early in the campaign,” he said. “A lot of liberal parents who are comfortable with nondiscrimination in their jobs don’t want it taught to their kids in school.”
If Measure 9 passes, all state schools from kindergarten through community college would be prohibited from encouraging homosexuality, and those schools that do encourage it could lose state funding. Counseling programs, school-sanctioned groups for non-heterosexual students, health education and school tolerance policies would be changed, though supporters and opponents of the measure disagree about how they will change.
Though Mabon said the OCA could convince the legislature to include state universities in the ban if the measure passes, Oregon University System spokesman Bob Bruce said state universities would remain unchanged.
The measure’s passage, however, would significantly affect the University’s neighbor, Lane Community College.
“It would affect LCC just as it would affect K-12 schools,” Robert Ackerman, chairman of the LCC board, said, adding that the LCC school board unanimously voted Sept. 13 to oppose the measure. “We view this as a denial of free speech, a violation of academic freedom and the marginalization of a group of students.”

OPPONENTS RAISE HEALTH CONCERNS
Susan Matthews, LCC multicultural advisor, said the measure would change the atmosphere of the community college.
“It would completely change the climate here to one that is completely intolerant of LGBT students and staff,” she said. “I think that just having the measure on the ballot is devastating. It legitimizes homophobia.”
Debate over the measure has renewed the “nature versus nurture” debate over the origins of homosexuality — supporters of the measure say homosexuality is a choice, while most opponents say it’s genetic predisposition.
“We don’t believe who a person has sex with and how they have sex is equal to race or religion,” Mabon said. “It’s a fundamental mistake people are making to equate homosexual behavior to minority status.”
Like most who speak against Measure 9, University Program Coordinator Phil McCullum said at a Planned Parenthood-sponsored press conference on Sept. 18 that the measure would single out non-heterosexual students and subject them to harassment.
“When we talk about equal rights for all, we mean equal and all,” he said.
Mabon, however, said that the measure would allow criticism of homosexuality but not harassment of gay and lesbian students.
“We are opposed to harassment at any level,” he said. “But a lot of these programs are just disguising acceptance.”
Though the measure’s opponents say its passage would eliminate counseling for non-heterosexual students, Mabon disagrees, saying school counselors would be barred only from telling students it’s acceptable to be gay. They could still counsel for depression and encourage students seek support from independent counselors.
Another concern opponents express is the possible restriction of health education.
“Measure 9 would place a stranglehold on the ability of schools to provide good HIV education,” said May Gossart, a Planned Parenthood education director.
Solano, the Portland high school teacher who supports Measure 9, said health education would not be restricted, but rather expanded to include what he called the dangers of homosexual sex.
“This is affecting our schools, and this is affecting our health care,” said state Rep. Kitty Piercy, D-Eugene. “Things are at stake for everybody.”