Recycling and Literacy are Threats to America!

Not just usual suspects

Conservative Web site to list 19 Colo. groups seen as left-leaning

By Peggy Lowe, Rocky Mountain News
February 17, 2004

A soon-to-be launched conservative Web site focusing on the nation's "political left" lists 19 Colorado groups, some of them the usual suspects and some more unexpected.

The usual? The ACLU, several gay and lesbian groups, and the Colorado Democratic Party.


The surprises? The Colorado Association for Recycling, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and a Colorado Springs adult literacy program.

FollowTheNetwork.org offers "a guide to the political left" and is being organized by David Horowitz, an outspoken Los Angeles conservative.

Horowitz has attracted attention in Colorado with his proposed Academic Bill of Rights, which is designed to ensure that conservative university faculty and students aren't discriminated against. Rep. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, has introduced a bill in the legislature based on those concerns.

As planned, FollowTheNetwork.org will be an Internet database "to make transparent the network of the left, including individuals, organizations, lawmakers and their funding sources," according to an April memo by Horowitz.

Horowitz said he was "flabbergasted" Monday when told of some of the Colorado groups listed on the site. Editors and researchers he hired entered that information and he hadn't seen it, Horowitz said.

Marjie Griek, executive director of the Colorado Association of Recyclers, said her group represents industry and city-based recycling programs and does educational work.

"I think it's a rather sad statement for their organization that they would consider us leftist," she said, then added with a laugh: "Who knows? We just might topple the government if we recycle too much."

Julie Tolleson was hitting to all fields on Horowitz's list. The Denver attorney is involved with the ACLU, the Colorado Legal Initiatives Project (a gay legal group reformed under a new name), the Colorado Stonewall Democrats (a gay Democratic group), and Equality Colorado, a gay and lesbian group now working under Equal Rights Colorado.

"To quote Dan Quayle, 'I wear their scorn as a badge of honor,' " Tolleson said. "Wow, I never thought I'd quote Dan Quayle."

Pikes Peak Community College, listed on the site for its "Adult Right to Read Program," says it doesn't have such a program.

And John O'Connor, national director for the Gill Foundation, which makes Horowitz's list, said his group is nonpartisan.

"The issues we deal with affect everyone, not just people on the left," O'Connor said. "If (Horowitz) thinks there are no gay people on the right who are affected by our issues, he's in for a big surprise."

FollowTheNetwork.org, which is scheduled to launch in a few months, will focus on national security concerns, Horowitz said.

Horowitz got the idea for the database from groups like mediatransparency.org, which is funded by the liberal People for the American Way.

"The idea of this is very simple, and that is, people fly under all kinds of colors, many of them false. I'm just going to put information up about these groups," he said.

"It will be better than mediatransparency," he said. "The left has been doing this for a decade."

FollowTheNetwork.org will include in its database groups working on issues including peace, civil liberties, immigration, anti-Israel and anti-nuclear efforts, Horowitz's memo says. He hopes to add feminist, civil rights, labor, abortion and gun control groups.