42: Anti-Gay Idaho - A History of Proposition 1

American History: Unabridged with Mark Iverson

The rallying cry of the pro Prop 1 crowd was "stop gay special rights." They felt that if gay people in Idaho were labeled a minority officially, they'd be protected from discrimination in the workplace and other public organizations like schools and libraries. They said gay people were not a minority like black people or Latinos because they chose to be gay and live "immorally," whereas true minorities had no choice. Proposition 1, claimed the Idaho Citizens Alliance after submitting the initiative for the November 1994 ballot, would prevent this from happening. The LGBT community and others opposed to Prop 1 said the intiative was active discrimination, and all they wanted was fair treatment, not discrimination because they were gay. In 1993 and 1994, the debate filled the headlines in Idaho and without. However, only the pro prop 1 crowd continually applied hatefilled rhetoric and blatant lies to attack LGBT people.