IRVINE : Measure N Approval Decried by Residents

Expressing shock and anger over the passage of Measure N, which strips homosexuals of protection under the city’s human rights ordinance, a number of Irvine residents spoke out for gay rights at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

Wearing homemade yellow ribbons in a show of unity, the residents also attacked the Irvine Values Coalition for supporting the ordinance with what they called lies and distortions.

“I’m angry, tired and hurt,” said Garrett Groenveld, president of UC Irvine’s Gay and Lesbian Student Union. “I’m not a child molester, and I don’t do all of those awful things they say I do.”

Members of the coalition, however, insisted that the passage of the ordinance would not be a condoning of discrimination.

Groenveld, like most of the residents who spoke Tuesday, also thanked the City Council for backing the anti-discrimination law which originally included homosexuals. With the passage of Measure N, the reference to gay and lesbians in that law was deleted.

“Measure N was a bonehead issue,” said UCI graduate student Will Swain, 29. “If you can’t see right and wrong on this issue, there’s no hope for you.”

Other residents promised to continue the fight for gay rights in Irvine and said the city had voted to erect a wall at the same time that the East Germans were dismantling one.

“We have been called child molesters, corrupters of youth, perverts, reservoirs of disease and people who want to turn our parks and streets into places of public sex,” said James Boone, a gay resident and a leader of the opposition to Measure N. “They said we are people to be feared and rejected, and then they had the gall to claim there is no discrimination in Irvine.”

Boone, who received a standing ovation from about 50 residents assembled in the council chambers, also said he considered himself a family man of traditional values.

Mayor Larry Agran thanked the residents for speaking out on the measure and vowed to work toward civil rights for all citizens in Irvine.