1. Do you support legal recognition of marriages between persons of the same sex?

2. Will you oppose efforts by Congress or other parties to stop the District of Columbia from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in Hawaii or other places?

3. Do you oppose efforts by Congress or other parties to outlaw or restrict adoptions by unmarried couples in the District of Columbia?

4. If Congress ever repeals the D.C. Health Care Benefits Expansion Act of 1992 that established the registration of domestic partnerships, will you vote to reenact the same law?

5. Do you support the reestablishment of the Office of Human Rights as an independent, Cabinet-level agency whose Director has direct access to the Mayor?

6. Do you agree that the Boy Scouts of America is violating the D.C. Human Rights Law's ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by excluding gays from participating either as scouts or as leaders?

7. Will you vote to repeal the Armstrong Amendment, which allows religiously-affiliated private educational institutions in the District to discriminate against student clubs that promote equal rights for lesbians and gay men?

8. Will you oppose efforts by Congress or other parties to abolish or restrict the right of our public school students to form clubs that promote greater understanding between gays and others?

9. Do you support the designation of a third party to act as a fiscal agent for the distribution of federal AIDS money, such as the system recently adopted by the Financial Control Board?

10. Do you agree that our own elected officials, past and present, bear much of the responsibility for the District's current financial plight because of their reluctance to make tough budgetary decisions, to establish priorities, and to demand maximum efficiency and productivity (rather than political loyalty) from all District government agencies and workers?

11. Do you support the condom availability programs that have been established in the District's public schools and prisons?

12. Will you support legislation that will establish an effective civilian complaint review system for our Metropolitan Police Department?

13. Do you support sensitivity and community relations training for all elements of our public safety system (police, fire department, etc.) that includes strong recognition of gay and lesbian community concerns, so that the District will never again tolerate the kind of insensitivity and incompetence reflected in the Fire Department's handling of the Tyra Hunter case?

14. Do you oppose legislation or initiatives that would authorize organized prayers in our public schools, thereby encouraging the harassment of individuals who choose not to participate?

15. Do you oppose efforts to abolish or drastically curtail the powers of our elected Board of Education?

_________________________________________________________________________

Please feel free to send us any copies of speeches, documents, campaign literature, or anything else that might illustrate your record on behalf on gay and lesbian issues.

________________________________________________________________________

Your answers should be written on separate sheets of paper rather than on this form. You must sign your name on your answer sheets to indicate your personal commitment to your answers. Please return this questionnaire by Friday, October 18 to GLAA, Attn:: Craig Howell/Elections Coordinator, P. O. Box 75265, Washington, D.C. 20013-5265. FAX submissions are acceptable, but e-mail transmissions are not.

September 1996

Dear City Council Candidate:

The District of Columbia has endured an unprecedented series of challenges to the most fundamental home rule principles over the last two years. Lesbians and gay men have been at a particular disadvantage because the Religious Right has too often taken advantage of the District's financial and management crisis by stampeding Congress into gratuitous assaults on our basic human rights and dignity. The next City Council must be much more aggressive in confronting both the District's self-inflicted wounds and the Religious Right's demagoguery.

In order to elicit your viewpoints on issues currently of great importance to lesbians and gay men, I have enclosed your copy of our questionnaire for all City Council candidates running in the September primaries.

GLAA recently celebrated our 25th anniversary, making us the nation's oldest continuously operating gay and lesbian rights organization. In every election since our founding in 1971, we have sent out similar questionnaires to help educate our community about the choices facing us at the polls.

As you may know, GLAA does not endorse candidates in partisan races; rather, we give numerical ratings to all candidates on a scale from -10 to +10, based upon each candidate's written responses to our questionnaire, combined with our assessment of each candidate's past record on behalf of lesbians and gay men. Our candidate ratings are released to the media and are advertised and circulated widely; we believe that our quarter-century of service gives our candidate ratings considerable credibility.

We encourage you to do more than give a simple "yes" or "no" response to our questions; the depth and completeness of your answers play a major role in determining your final rating. To help you understand the background for the issues raised in this year's questionnaire, we would be glad to give you a briefing (probably about an hour long) before you send in your replies. Just call us on (202) 667-5139 to request a briefing.

I have taken the liberty of enclosing a copy of GLAA's Agenda : 1996; please take the time to read this for a brief summary of our perspectives on a wide variety of issues and concerns.

The deadline for submitting your questionnaire responses is Friday, October 18. We ask you to sign the bottom of each of your answer sheets. We suggest that you mail or fax your replies; however, we can not accept e-mail transmissions. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Richard J. Rosendall
President