DENVER-In what might be a preview of coming attacks from Oregon Democrats, U.S. Rep. Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., on Tuesday took Republican John McCain to task for supporting an anti-gay group in Oregon 15 years ago.

McCain, then as now an Arizona senator, was the featured speaker at a fundraiser in 1993 for the Oregon Citizens Alliance. The group had sponsored an unsuccessful ballot measure the year before that described homosexuality as “abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse.”

Hooley told Oregon delegates that McCain aided the Oregon Citizens Alliance even after then-Sen. Mark O. Hatfield, R-Ore., encouraged him to keep his distance from the group.

Afterwards, Hooley said that even though the fundraiser occurred years ago, the fight over Measure 9 is still well-remembered in Oregon.

“If I were a gay or lesbian who thought my civil rights were being impacted by somebody, I’d remember it,” she said. She described this as a “little note in history to let people know McCain has never been very good on any of the social issues.”

McCain’s appearance came about as part of a pact involving then-Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., and the Oregon Citizens Alliance. In 1991, OCA leader Lon Mabon and Al Mobley, who ran under the OCA banner for governor in 1990, met with Packwood and other GOP senators who feared a similar third-party candidacy by the group in Packwood’s 1992 race.

The citizens alliance agreed not to run a candidate and the senators agreed they would provide fundraising help. As a result, McCain showed up in Portland and delivered the keynote speech urging the group to adopt the “essence of tolerance.”

SOURCE: The Oregonian, August 26

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