Pubdate: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 Source: Reuters Copyright: 1998 Reuters Limited. Author: Yereth Rosen ALASKA BALLOT QUESTIONS DRAW "OUTSIDE" INTEREST ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - In Alaska, a state known for its vast wilderness, frigid climate and rugged individualism, residents have a derisive name -- "Outside" -- for everyplace that is not Alaska and a dismissive motto for the rest of the world: "We don't care how they do it Outside." But Outside, they apparently care how Alaskans do things. Activists in the Lower 48 states have pumped large sums of money into campaigns for Alaska ballot issues to be decided in the Nov. 3 election. The biggest spenders are the Utah-based Mormon Church, a Washington, D.C.-based group that opposes bilingual education, a Washington-based group headed by conservative Christian activist Gary Bauer, animal welfare and pro-hunting activists and a California group supported by billionaire philanthropist George Soros. Their contributions to campaigns on ballot issues affecting gay marriage, official use of English, medical use of marijuana and trapping wolves have dwarfed in-state donations. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) last month gave $500,000, a huge amount in a sparsely populated state, to the Alaska Family Coalition, which is campaigning for an amendment to the state constitution that would forbid same-sex marriage. The Alaska group also got $50,000 from Bauer's organization, American Renewal Inc. In all, the group had raised nearly $600,000 as of early October. OUTSIDERS FEAR ALASKA GAY MARRIAGES Non-Alaskans fear that if Alaska recognizes gay marriages other states would be forced to follow, Alaska Family Coalition spokeswoman Kristina Johannes said. Alaskans for Civil Rights, which opposes the amendment, had collected about $130,000 as of mid-October. Almost all of that was from individual Alaskans and about $30,000 came in the week after the Mormon contribution made the news, spokeswoman Allison Mendel said. Among the Alaska donors was Arliss Sturgulewski, a former state senator and two-time Republican gubernatorial candidate who said she is "offended to to see massive Outside dollars coming into our state with the aim of setting the standards" for Alaskans' relations with each other. "Frankly, this is the first time that I have seen money like that come into the state," Sturgulewski said. The campaign for a ballot measure to mandate government use of English got most of its financial backing from a national organization, U.S. English, which gave about $12,500 to the English-only drive, early October campaign reports show. Why target Alaska? "Because Alaska's part of this country and we're going through every state and we're doing Alaska and Utah this year," Mauro Mujica, chairman of U.S. English, said from his Washington headquarters. His organization is trying to pass English-only laws in all 50 states, said Mujica, who has traveled to Alaska to campaign for the initiative. The measure has drawn bitter opposition from Alaskan Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts, who say it threatens their efforts to preserve embattled aboriginal languages. 'A BUNCH OF PAID PETITION-GATHERERS' Also opposing it is Gov. Tony Knowles, a Democrat seeking re-election, who called it an "emotional wedge issue" imported from the Lower 48 states. "It really is quite amazing that an Outside group would come in here with a bunch of paid petition-gatherers," he said. Soros-supported Americans for Medical Rights donated about $125,000 to an Alaskan group campaigning to legalize medical marijuana use. As of early October, the Alaska group had raised only about $8,500 from other sources. Knowles, Republican gubernatorial candidate John Lindauer and U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski, a Republican up for re-election, oppose the medical marijuana initiative. But polls show wide support for it and the Green Party's gubernatorial candidate argued at a recent debate that some marijuana use could be an expression of Alaska pride. "We produce the best marijuana in the world," Green Party candidate Desa Jacobbson said. "I'm not going to stand here and say that you can't give some of that marijuana to your grandma when she's suffering." Animal welfare activists, led by Connecticut-based Friends of Animals, which donated $65,000 as of early October, have contributed to the Alaska campaign to outlaw trapping wolves with neckhold snares. A pro-hunting group in Minnesota gave $35,000, and promised more, to defeat the measure. Other propositions on the Alaska ballot have drawn less out-of-state interest. One would ban billboards. Others would strip the governor's authority over legislative redistricting and endorse term limits for elected officials. - --- Checked-by: Patrick Henry