Brody's Notes... Ballot Measure To Protect LGBTQ People In Anchorage Fails

By Brody Levesque | ANCHORAGE, ALASKA -- The voters in Anchorage have rejected a proposed ordinance that would have added legal protections for LGBTQ people to the city's charter. City elections officials noted that with an unexpectedly high turnout, and with some polling places running out of ballots, there are a large number of votes that might be on "questioned" ballots, which will be required to be counted by hand. According to municipal clerk Barbara Gruenstein, final results may be days or longer away. As of Tuesday evening, preliminary results- With 90 percent of the precincts reporting- showed 58 percent of the city's voters had voted against the measure known as Proposition 5. [The Anchorage Equal Rights Ordinance would have amended Anchorage's Title 5 non-discrimination code.]

One Anchorage campaign spokesperson Trevor Storrs told local news media it was too early to judge anything;

"We have complete faith in the electoral process, and the clerk's office needs to be the one to evaluate the situation," Storrs said. That would be his only comment, he said, because "we don't want to make any assumptions or put out any mistruths. We're proud of a big turnout," he said.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that Prop. 5 was the third attempt by LGBTQ equality rights advocates to outlaw discrimination against LGBTQ people since the city's charter took effect in 1975, but Tuesday was the first time the issue had been voted on in a municipal election. The effort to pass it started in December 2011 when the One Anchorage campaign collected the signatures of 13,515 registered voters to place the initiative on the ballot.

The One Anchorage campaign argued that legal protections for LGBTQ residents were overdue and instances of discrimination demonstrated a need for the law.
Opponents, campaigning as Vote No On Prop. 5, complained that the law was vague and poorly written and would impinge on the religious freedom of residents opposed to homosexuality. The proposition included an exemption from the law for churches and religious organizations. ~ The Anchorage Daily News

The Vote No On 5 group had launched a controversial campaign against the ballot measure, using cartoon scenarios portraying likely scenarios it claimed would occur if the law passed. Storrs and the Anchorage campaign sharply criticised the ads' portrayal of transgender people as demeaning.

Alaska is one of 14 states with no protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.