YWCA Defends Gay Rights
Agency urges voters to refuse to sign petitions for Referendum 71
Thursday, July 23
BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN
COLUMBIAN STAFF WRITER
After opponents of gay rights kicked off an effort this summer to repeal Washington’s new “everything but marriage” law, gay rights backers in Clark County have found an unusual champion.
It’s the YWCA, the nonprofit group that describes its goal as “Eliminating racism, empowering women.”
As part of an effort to broaden its political identity, the Vancouver-based YWCA of Clark County has become the most prominent local voice against Referendum 71, a proposed ballot issue whose backers are still rushing to gather more than 120,577 signatures by Saturday afternoon.
“There were a few folks that were concerned about our organization getting publicly involved, because of the potential backlash,” said local YWCA Executive Director Kathy Kneip.
But equal treatment for same-sex couples was too important an issue to ignore, the YWCA decided.
“We think that we will gain more supporters by far than we will lose supporters for having taken this stand,” Kneip said Wednesday.
So far, the group has written letters to local newspapers, sent e-mail blasts to its 1,800 subscribers and hung a banner opposing R-71 outside its Main Street headquarters.
Kneip’s group typically draws about half its revenue from government grants and contracts, tax records show. Among its services: A 24-hour crisis line for domestic violence victims, court-appointed advocates for abused children and a preschool for poor children younger than 5.
In 2007, the YWCA’s total income was $3.5 million.
Money spent opposing R-71 came from donations, not government grants.
In all its communications, the YWCA has urged people not to sign R-71 petitions, to keep the issue off the November ballot.
The referendum doesn’t address same-sex marriage, which remains illegal in Washington. And it wouldn’t prevent couples with domestic partnerships from visiting each other in the hospital or using other rights granted in 2007 and 2008.
But if the referendum passes, it would prevent gay and lesbian couples from receiving pensions for dead partners and other rights granted to married couples.
“We see this as the same thing as racial discrimination,” Kneip said. “This is no different. … It’s a minority group being oppressed and deprived of rights that are given to everyone else.”
Opponents of gay rights disagree.
“It surprises me that they would support something that is so divisive and controversial, when they depend on the largesse from all walks of people,” said Debbie Peterson of Vancouver, who has been collecting signatures for R-71. “I think the (YWCA) founders would probably roll over in their graves.”
The first Young Women’s Christian Association was founded in 1855 in London. Now officially known by its initials, the YWCA of the USA has supported racial integration, women’s voting rights and other social issues.
Clark County’s YWCA has also publicly backed abortion rights and affirmative action laws, though Kneip said the campaign against R-71 is its most public fight in years.
Peterson, 57, said she has “affection” for the group, and as a private school teacher has organized student donations to YWCA services.
She said she supports the YWCA’s anti-racism work.
“I’ll be there bringing cookies and milk and holding a sign with them, because they’re right about that,” said Peterson. “There is a chasm a mile-and-a-half long between racism and these other things.”
Peterson said her beloved male cousin has a male partner and an adopted child. She added that her “heart goes out to people who are homosexual” but that she feels they are “desperate to have society put the stamp of acceptance on them.”
Peterson said the YWCA shouldn’t be part of that.
“They should stick to what they do best,” Peterson said. “Which is mending families.”
Margo Bryant, president of the Vancouver chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said she sees no difference between racial discrimination and discrimination against gays and lesbians.
“The NAACP is a firm believer — here locally at least — in rights for everybody, including gays and lesbians,” said Bryant, who like Kneip said she favors gay marriage. “I consider the overturn of a gay rights movement as an abomination.”
Barbara Aitken, who heads Vancouver’s chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, said that when multi-issue groups like the YWCA support gay rights, it can make straight people more comfortable with the cause.
Al Flory, a YWCA employee who helped organize the group’s effort, said the YWCA advocates are “neophytes at this.”
“We’re not heavy-duty, lobbying type people,” said Flory.
But Flory said the YWCA’s public policy committee had been trying to “re-energize” itself, and that a new campaign for civil rights is doing the job.
“It was sort of a feeling … we’ve done enough talking,” Flory said. “It’s time to take a stand.”
Michael Andersen: 360-735-4508 or mich...@columbian.com.
