[Vision2020] Local News - Activists use stickers to stir debate on rights

[The Idaho Statesman]

You have been sent the following article from Tim Rigsby as a courtesy of The Idaho Statesman.

"Local News - Activists use stickers to stir debate on rights"

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A group posted "Heterosexuals Only" stickers in restrooms, at drinking fountains, on benches and bus stops in Downtown Boise early Monday morning.

A spokesman for the effort said about a dozen members of a grass-roots human rights group pasted 170 messages about the size of bumper stickers in the Statehouse and in busy parts of Downtown Boise to trigger dialogue about the state ballot initiative to prohibit gay marriage.

Many of the stickers reportedly had been removed by Monday afternoon.

The signs are intended to echo Jim Crow laws that segregated black and white people in the South, said the group member, who would not give his name. Jim Crow laws, which were lifted in the 1950s and 1960s, prevented the two races from sharing public amenities such as drinking fountains.

Idaho voters will decide in November whether to change the state constitution to ban gay marriage. The Idaho Legislature decided last month to put the issue on the ballot. Existing law already prohibits gay marriage in Idaho, but a constitutional amendment will be harder to change than the law.

Jim Smith, who volunteers for Your Family Friends & Neighbors, an Idaho gender identity and sexual orientation advocacy group, said he didn't know about the stickers. But he guessed they represent a growing resentment about the ballot initiative. Since Thursday, Smith has worn a pin reading "Second-class citizen" because he feels he's being discriminated against in Idaho because he's gay.

ValleyRide sent a maintenance worker Monday afternoon to all of the bus stops to make sure the signs were gone, said Mark Carnopis, ValleyRide spokesman.

"We don't know who put them on there," he said. "We don't condone that kind of behavior ... I don't think you can derive anything positive from it."