Irvine Watchdog Opinion: Christina Shea’s Homophobic Past Called Into Question
Read the original article at Irvine Watchdog here
This November, the Irvine mayoral seat is up for election, with incumbent Mayor Christina Shea running for the position. While Shea is the incumbent, she was not elected, and assumed the seat when the previous mayor resigned.
Shea is now running for “reelection.” Before you mark your ballot this November, I think it is worthwhile to take a look into Christina Shea’s past.
Last year, I began researching the LGBT rights movement in Orange County during the 1980s. While in the process of conducting this research, I found out that Christina Shea, Mayor of Irvine, was heavily involved in a homophobic organization during 1989, and that her involvement in this organization got her name on the political map in Irvine – leading to her become elected as a city councilor for the first time in 1992.
In 1988, the Irvine City Council unanimously approved its Human Rights Ordinance, which was meant to prevent discrimination “based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, physical handicap or sexual orientation.”1 In 1989, relying on help from Louis Sheldon, founder of the homophobic Traditional Values Coalition, Christina Shea, Michael Shea, and Scott Peotter founded the Irvine Values Coalition.2 The Irvine Values Coalition then gathered enough signatures to place a measure on the 1989 ballot, Measure N, which removed “sexual orientation” as a protected category under the Human Rights Ordinance, leaving the rest of the language of the Ordinance intact.
While involved in this campaign:
- The Sheas gave over $5,000 ($10,480.56 today)3 to the Irvine Values Coalition.4
- Shea wrote several op-eds in the Los Angeles Times voicing her opinion on Measure N. In one, Shea claimed that the Human Rights Ordinance granted “special protection” to homosexuals – but not to any of the other protected groups included within it.5
- During the week of the 1989 election, Shea was paraphrased in the Orange County Register: “By acknowledging homosexuals as a minority in law, [Shea] said, the government is condoning a behavior that runs contrary to accepted moral beliefs that have run this country since its inception.”6
- The Sheas stated that they had a gay person in the family and “love[d] him very much.” But, Michael told the Los Angeles Times: “We don’t happen to agree with that lifestyle.”7
- Michael Shea told the Times after Measure N’s victory that “in my opinion and Christina’s opinion, [homosexuals] are neither unchangeable nor morally neutral…If you give minority status to behavior-based life styles, you open up a Pandora’s box – to smokers, drinkers, neo-Nazis if you will.”8
Measure N succeeded 52.5% to 47.5%,9 and the city of Irvine was forced to remove its sexual orientation protections. Today, these protections are codified under California law. But at the time, they were extremely progressive; Irvine was one of the first cities in the country to adopt a law protecting sexual orientation. The damage that the Sheas, Peotter, and the Irvine Values Coalition did to the Irvine Human Rights Ordinance was only undone this July, when the Irvine City Council voted to repeal Measure N.
