Omaha, Nebraska Rejects LGBT Rights Ordinance

Is it 2010 or 1975?

As we finish the LGBT Rights in the Era of Obama section of the class comes word about this story which reads like it is right out of Neil Miller's Out of the Past LGBT history book: a city council refusing to pass a non-discrimination ordinance protecting gay and transgender citizens.

Here's the deets:

The Omaha City Council on Tuesday voted down a proposed ordinance to give new protections to gays and lesbians.

The measure failed on a 3-3 vote. Councilman Franklin Thompson, who has called for a public vote on the issue, abstained.

Councilmen Ben Gray, Pete Festersen and Chris Jerram voted in favor of the ordinance; Jean Stothert, Garry Gernandt and Thomas Mulligan were opposed.

Gray, author of the ordinance, proposed that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people be a protected class under city code — protection they don't currently have under state or federal law.

He amended the proposal to exclude religious organizations, but members of the Omaha business community also opposed the ordinance.

The council held a public hearing Tuesday on Thompson's proposal to put the issue to a public vote, in the form of an amendment to the City Charter. The vote on Thompson's measure is expected next week.

“I find it offensive that we would equate this with civil rights,” Pastor Cedric Perkins, pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church said. “Those rights were based upon a person's color of their skin, which they could not change.”

[...]

The existing city ordinance already includes language prohibiting bias based on race, color, creed, religion, sex, marital status, national origin, age and disability.

Gray's ordinance would allow homosexual and transgender residents who believe they have been fired or suffered other workplace discrimination, or have been refused service at a restaurant, hotel or other place that serves the public, to file a complaint with Omaha's Human Rights and Relations Department, Assistant City Attorney Bernard in den Bosch has said.

In case you were wondering, here's a picture of "Pastor Cedric Perkins." Leapfrog Paranoia, Willful Blindness and Defiant Ignorance, anyone?




(Note, that the city councilman who proposed the ordinance, Ben Gray, is also African-American). Thus we have an example of Diversity Within intersectionality.