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