25 years ago: City Commission to discuss routine issues, address controversial amendment

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Jan. 15, 1988:

At their upcoming meeting, Lawrence city commissioners were to review bids to build a nature trail at the Viola and Conrad McGrew Nature Preserve, to make repairs to the Naismith storm sewer drainage ditch, and to supply city police with gun holsters and clip holders. The commission was also to consider a resolution declaring the need to resurface Seventh Street from New Hampshire to New York streets. The city was planning to widen Seventh Street as a preliminary step toward an “Eastern parkway” to connect downtown and Kansas Highway 10. However, the most controversial topic up for discussion was the proposed amendment to the city’s Human Rights ordinance which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Journal-World had received an abundance of letters both in support of and in opposition to the amendment, including one today that read in part, “Why should the health and welfare of our entire community be threatened because a few people living in our community have, of their own free moral agency, chosen a lifestyle that is contrary to nature and according to the Bible is immoral?… As health statistics prove, the incidence of AIDS and other sexually related diseases are increasing at terrifying rates among homosexuals. So the gay lifestyle is a threat not only to gays but to the population in general as these diseases spread to the public.”