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Fairness ordinance moves forward in Maysville

Damon Huff, The Ledger Independent

Discussions on a fairness ordinance to protect LGBT residents of Maysville continued at the Maysville Commission on Human Rights meeting on Thursday.

Chris Hartman, director of the Fairness Campaign, spoke with the commission about fairness ordinances across the commonwealth.

The Fairness Campaign is Kentucky’s LGBT advocacy organization. According to its website, its primary goal is comprehensive civil rights legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and to dismantle systematic racism.

According to Hartman, more than half of LGBT people have experienced workplace discrimination in the United States.

Currently, 19 states have statewide fairness laws. Kentucky is not one of them.

“In these states, the whole state has updated their civil rights laws to include these four words – sexual orientation and gender identity alongside the other protected classes.” Hartman said.

According to Hartman, Kentucky does protect one class that no other state in the union protects – smokers.

“In the commonwealth of Kentucky you do have more civil rights protections based on your smoking status today than you do if you’re LGBT depending on where you live,” Hartman said.

Currently there are nine cities in Kentucky that have LGBT fairness ordinances: Louisville, Lexington, Covington, Vicco, Frankfort, Morehead, Danville, Midway and Paducah.

“Since passing their fairness ordinance, Midway has seen a 100 percent job growth rate and their occupational tax has skyrocketed in the community,” Hartman said. “Mayor Vandegrift is saying, ‘Is this because we did fairness? I don’t know. But everyone who said this would hurt the community were wrong.’”

Paducah officials mentioned economic growth as one reason for passing the fairness ordinance, saying they wanted the city to be a place where an employee can feel comfortable against discrimination.

“These type of fairness ordinances are very useful when talking about economic growth in a city or a state,” Hartman said.

According to Hartman, those nine cities cover 27 percent of Kentucky’s population.

“That does mean that 75 percent of our population live in a place where it is still legal to discriminate based on their sexual orientation,” Hartman said.

Hartman also said that the argument of never hearing of any problems from LGBT citizens doesn’t really hold water in areas without fairness ordinances.

“Who do people complain to,” Hartman said. “They can come and tell people about it but there’s nothing that can be done about it at this time. LGBT people currently don’t have an outlet in an area or a state that doesn’t have a fairness law.”

Hartman said that a fairness ordinance would protect everyone from discrimination because it builds on civil rights laws that already exist. Hartman also said that despite popular belief, there are no federal laws protecting discrimination protecting the LGBT community.

Hartman also said that no fairness ordinance is exactly the same, but said that in general churches or organizations owned or operated by a religion are exempt from these specific protections.

“A church has no obligation even under an ordinance like this to marry a gay couple, rent a church out for an LGBT wedding or hire LGBT people,” Hartman said. “Churches are absolutely exempt from all of those things.”

According to latest polling across Kentucky, 83 percent of Kentuckians support a fairness act with 90 percent of Kentuckians in our congressional district supporting. Several Kentucky employers have signed on in support of a LGBT fairness ordinance, including UPS, Fifth-Third Bank and Humana.

The commission approved a motion to approach city attorney Sue Brammer to begin drafting an ordinance to present to City Commission.

“We love to run around Maysville and tout Maysville as this glorious place,” Commissioner Mike Thomas said. “We need to put our money where our mouths are and put our hearts up there and do it.”

The commission will hold a special meeting with Brammer on Jan. 30 or Feb. 1.

The Ledger Independent is online at: http://www.maysville-online.com