By STEVE RINEHART
Daily News reporter
Republican candidate for governor John Lindauer, opening a vault inhabited by unruly ghosts, accused Gov. Tony Knowles last week of favoring same-sex marriages in Alaska.
Knowles, a Democrat, disputed that. He said he supports a 1996 state law that provides only for men and women to marry each other but he is against adding similar language to the state constitution, as one of the November ballot measures purposes.
Knowles agreed only reluctantly to be interviewed on the topic, which he says Lindauer is raising only to gain political points. And Lindauer, despite his attack, hedged when pressed for details on his position.
If recent history is any guide, both the leading candidates for governor have reason to tread carefully. The last time homosexuality became a political issue in Anchorage, it pitched the city into months of angry debate, threats of physical harm and political retribution, religious invocations, a petition drive, a ruling from the state Supreme Court and an election in 1993 that cost two people their seats on the city Assembly.
Reaction to the Anchorage measure – an ordinance forbidding the city government and its contractors from discriminating against people because of sexual orientation – became so heated that at one point a delegation of church leaders made public appeal for calm.
“I am concerned about the animosity and just plain hostility,” Rick Benjamin, pastor of Abbott Loop Christian Center, told Anchorage Assembly. Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld of Temple Beth Sholom warned about, “divisiveness bordering on hatred.”
A citizens initiative to repeal the ordinance was invalidated by the Alaska Supreme Court before people had a chance to vote on it. But the Assembly repealed the ordinance after the election.
Lindauer, in an interview Thursday, said he remembers that fray. He insisted that he is not making same-sex marriage a campaign issue. In a press release the day before, however, he focused specifically on that topic.
The written statement, faxed to the news media, was titled, “Lindauer to Knowles: Stick to Issues.” In it, Lindauer said his support for the amendment banning same-sex marriage is “a key example of (his) differences on issues with Tony Knowles.”
Shown the press release, Lindauer still maintained he was not making an issue of the marriage amendment. “A politician cannot remain silent on an issue that is before the public,” he said.
The legislature voted this spring to put the amendment to the voters in November. Ballot Measure No. 2 says a valid marriage in Alaska “may exist only between one man and one woman” and that nothing in the constitution can be interpreted to require the state to “recognize or permit marriage between individuals of the same sex.”
Lindauer said the amendment reflects common sense. “The function of marriage historically has been for men and women to get together and have a family,” he said.
“Caribou know the difference. Fish know the difference. Tony Knowles doesn't know the difference,” he said.
He blasted Knowles for refusing to sign the state law enacted in 1996 banning same-sex marriage, and for criticizing the proposed amendment.
Asked what public policy problem might arise if people of the same sex were allowed to marry, Lindauer replied, “Alaska would become the destination for those people.”
He would not say what problem that would pose.
Knowles was widely expected to veto that 1996 legislation, but instead he allowed it to become law without his signature. He said a new law was unnecessary.
A state ban on same-sex marriage “was on the books with I became governor,” he said Friday. “The Legislature passed a redundant law. The only reason for them to do that would be for some kind of political advantage.”
The amendment is unnecessary and divisive, he said.
Allowing people of the same sex to marry would raise legal and public policy questions about insurance , property law and inheritance, Knowles said, as well as issues of tradition and family integrity. He said he'd rather keep marriage as it is, between men and women.
“If I did not believe in the current law, I would have tried to repeal it,” Knowles said.
A pair of public opinion surveys done during the legislative debate on the amendment last April gave disparate results. Dave Dittman of Dittman Research said his statewide poll found that about two-thirds of Alaskans supported an amendment banning same-sex marriages. At about the same time, Jean Craciun of Craciun and Associates said that in her poll, about half of Anchorage voters said they would vote against such an amendment.
While the specifics are different between the 1993 city ordinance and the proposed amendment, they tap related and powerful public sentiments, said former Assemblyman John Wood, a Muldoon conservative who introduced the 1993 ordinance. “Dealing with homosexuals is such a volatile issue with the religious right,” he said. “It is life or death, fall on your sword.”
The issue is warming already. The Christian Coalition of Alaska featured the marriage amendment in its August newsletter. The group appealed for support to pass the amendment, warning that “well-organized homosexual networks in San Francisco and New York City” may help oppose it.
Duane French, who lost his Midtown Assembly seat in 1993 after being targeted as a supporter of the city's gay-rights ordinance, said the marriage amendment promises to become even more incendiary because it “is as much about religion as government.”
“It will be difficult and probably ugly. Maybe even uglier than the last time, and that was really ugly,” he said.
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