 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Rights law passes with little opposition
By BRYAN GILMER, Times Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG -- St. Petersburg on Thursday became one of a handful of Florida cities to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and it did so with far less rancor than other, similar efforts in the Tampa Bay area. Of more than 45 members of the public who spoke to the City Council, just one person opposed protecting gays, lesbians and bisexuals under the city's Human Rights Ordinance. The new rules ban discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations. The well-organized opposition by political and religious groups prominent in similar discussions during the past decade in Hillsborough and Tampa just wasn't there. (Tampa has the protections; Hillsborough County repealed such a law in 1995.) "We were thinking, all right, where's the other side?" City Council member Richard Kriseman said. "That one guy got up, and it was, "Okay, there's that one person."' After the four-hour hearing Thursday, the council voted 6-2 to add sexual orientation language to its law, becoming at least the sixth Florida city to do so. Council members Bill Foster and Earnest Williams voted no, though Williams was not opposed to protecting gays, just to making that new protection apply to government employees. Mayor Rick Baker, who has consistently opposed adding the sexual orientation language, said afterward that he does not plan to veto the change. As things stood Thursday, it was obvious the council has the votes to override him. If Baker does not veto the new ordinance by 5 p.m. Jan. 10, it will automatically take effect. Much of the public comment Thursday was about whether to go beyond sexual orientation and add cross-dressers, transsexuals and other "transgender" people to those protected by the ordinance. The council ultimately declined. The change the City Council did make Thursday extended city civil rights protections beyond the categories in state and federal laws. Those laws cover race, disability and gender but not sexual orientation. Baker and Foster both spoke against stretching local law beyond those bounds. But the absence of a vocal bloc of opponents from the public surprised scholars who closely monitor such debates. "I am surprised that the more traditional church groups in particular wouldn't organize against it," said Jim Button, a professor of political science at the University of Florida and co-author of a book on debates over gay rights. UF religion professor David Gray Hackett, agreed. "It is true that conservative Christians are becoming aware there are homosexuals in their midst, which has given them some pause," he said. "But they remain doctrinaire in their opposition to it." Florida Family Association executive director David Caton has been at the center of opposition to sexual orientation protections in Hillsborough and Tampa. He did appear at previous St. Petersburg council meetings to oppose the ordinance, arguing that such protections would serve no purpose. But he was not present Thursday. "It was very clear this ordinance was going to pass (after) the 7-1 vote" council members took at the ordinance's first reading last month, Caton said. He said the attention gay rights groups receive during the debates of such proposals outweigh any benefit they receive from the ordinance. His group did not try to organize a turnout for the public hearing, deciding not "to waste the aggravation and time and money and resources over an ordinance that when enacted, is irrelevant," Caton said. When asked Thursday afternoon, Park Street Baptist Church Pastor Dennis W. Jennings said he had not heard about the sexual orientation proposal. "I was not aware of it at all," said the St. Petersburg pastor. "That's not unusual for me, sadly. We would have and should have come out and opposed it, I'm sure." But another Southern Baptist pastor said he saw no reason to lobby against the change. "No matter what a person's lifestyle may be, I think we ought not be prejudiced against them," the Rev. Fred Cooley of Friendship Baptist Church in St. Petersburg said in a phone interview. Baker's pastor, D. Scott Boggs of Northside Baptist Church, spoke out on the issue during a luncheon at his church in May. Boggs encouraged a multidenominational group of 25 pastors to stand with him and uphold "a 3,500-year Judeo-Christian principal of opposing homosexuality and lesbianism as a valid lifestyle." His remarks offended several ministers, who left the meeting after a testy exchange. Boggs could not be reached Thursday. Assuming there is no veto, the new protection is unlikely to result in a flood of new discrimination complaints. St. Petersburg Community Affairs Director Clarence Scott III said one or two people ask about filing a sexual orientation discrimination complaint each year. His office has had to turn people away with no law on the books. Tampa does have a law and residents have not filed many complaints. "It has not been our experience," said Fred Hearns, administrator of Tampa's Office of Human Rights and Community Services. Of the 83 discrimination complaints the Tampa office received in 2001, only three alleged sexual-orientation discrimination. Hearns said sexual orientation became a protected class under city law in 1992. "I think it's only a matter of time before it becomes state law," he said. -- Times staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this story. Human rights ordinance amendmentThe St. Petersburg City Council amended the city's human rights ordinance Thursday to protect people from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation, in addition to factors such as race, national origin, disability and gender already in the ordinance. Here is how the added term is defined in the rewritten ordinance: "Sexual orientation means an individual's actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times South Pinellas desks |
