The Oregon Citizens Alliance Ballot Measure 9 of 1992

GLAPN is facilitating a six-month series of programs called Lessons of Ballot Measure 9 to explore how our community dealt with "… one of the most comprehensive – and harshest – antigay measures put to voters in American history."*

We'll join the LGBTQ+ community in remembering the No on 9 campaign(s), celebrating our victory, mourning those who have passed, and taking a close look at how the civil rights struggle of 1992 can inform the struggles going on nationwide as conservative legislatures attack the LGBTQ+ community.


Video from September 8: The discussion after screening Heather MacDonald's hard-hitting video Ballot Measure 9 at the Clinton Street Theater. GLAPN's Valerie Whittlesey hosted Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and Reyna Lopez, executive director of PCUN (the farmworkers union headquartered in Woodburn) in discussing their experience in activism and what we can all learn from the history of Ballot Measure 9 to build safer and stronger communities for all! See the video of the conversation at this link. VIDEO FROM JULY 17, 2022 – Activists Kathleen Saadat, Ramon Ramirez, Anne Galisky, and Pat Young appeared in a panel discussion about the Oregon Citizens Alliance Ballot Measure 9 at Kennedy School. Ian Morton, Q Center's executive director, was moderator. Holly Pruett, senior fellow at Western States Center and herself an activist from the Measure 9 era, introduced the histories that Western States Center is accumulating on NoOn9remembered.org to commemorate the anniversary. The event was streamed live from GLAPN's Facebook page, and this video will go into GLAPN's permanent archives. FOLLOW THIS LINK to view the video.

Follow this link to our Calendar of Events	Read the complete text of the OCA's Ballot Measure 9 at this link .	Read GLAPN'S articles & view activists' profiles

Our friends at Western States Center got an early start with their website, NoOn9Remembered.org. Return to the site often – they'll be adding stories throughout the year. CLICK THIS TEXT to view the site.	Read a reminiscence by Thalia Zepatos on Basics Rights Oregon's website at this link.	AT THIS LINK: Catherine Stauffer talks about race, homophobia in the 1990s, and the lawsuit that bankrupted the OCA.

Thirty years later the LGBTQ+ community remembers the labor and celebrates the legacies of the 1992 No on 9 campaign.

GLAPN will be kicking off a series of four live programs starting in July and running through the end of 2022. We're supporting other community organizations in events of their own, both in Portland and out-of-town, and keeping it all on our calendar, which is updated frequently at this link. We'll be introducing the Ballot Measure 9 struggle for those who weren't here. We'll be talking about the people who were excluded from the campaign(s), primarily around the issue of race. We're offering an intergenerational program, talking about community organizing then and now. And we'll wrap up with a combination of celebration and dedication, sometime after the election. Many events, times and places are TBD, so check back here frequently.

Linda Kliewer photo courtesy of NoOn9Remembered.org

Ballot Measure 9 was defeated at the polls in 1992, 56 percent to 44 percent.

* William Schulz, Oregon Historical Society Quarterly