After months of debate, the American Political Science Association’s governing council voted on Thursday to affirm the group’s plan to hold its 2012 convention in New Orleans.
Lesbian and gay activists in the association have objected to the New Orleans site because of a strictly worded anti-gay-marriage amendment approved by Louisiana voters in 2004. Others have argued, however, that it is important to support New Orleans and its social movements after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. (The dispute has been copiously archived at an anonymously maintained blog.)
More than 800 members of the association submitted comments on the matter, according to a statement posted today by its president, Dianne M. Pinderhughes, who is a professor of political science and Africana studies at the University of Notre Dame.
At its Thursday meeting, the council also voted to revise its policy for selecting convention sites. Previously, the policy encouraged the association to reject cities where municipal laws might violate civil rights. Now, the policy will also allow the association to scrutinize state-level policies (like Louisiana’s anti-gay-marriage amendment), not just local laws.
In voting to meet in New Orleans despite the Louisiana law, the council took into account reports that New Orleans has remained tolerant of gay and lesbian visitors, Ms. Pinderhughes’s statement suggested. “Communities hosting APSA meetings will be expected to assure the civil rights and safety of all APSA members,” she wrote.
Thursday’s vote might not mark the end of the matter, however. Daniel R. Pinello, a professor of government at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, wrote in an e-mail message to The Chronicle today that he and other activists would organize a boycott of the New Orleans meeting. Citing a 2007 incident at a Florida hospital, Mr. Pinello wrote that “the welfare of same-sex couples and their families is insufficiently protected in jurisdictions like Louisiana. The association’s continuing refusal to shield its members from such overtly discriminatory and hostile treatment requires an extraordinary response like a boycott.” —David Glenn
