Op-Ed: The Battle to Enforce Anti- Discrimination Laws is about Public Bathrooms and Wedding Cakes?

When asked why he believed there was so much pushback by the "religious opposition" to anti-discrimination enforcement in Columbus, local Civil Rights advocate Harry Underwood said "The best I can tell is that their opposition against it is concerning public restrooms and wedding cakes."

He is referring, of course, to all the televised and social media flack with regard to Colorado bakery owner Jack Phillips, who was found to be in violation of state anti-discrimination laws when, in 2018, he drew national attention for refusing to bake a cake to celebrate a trans-woman's birthday transition from one gender to another; and in 2012, he refused to bake a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act sharply guarantees equal access to public accommodations, housing, and employment regardless of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation (including transgender status), marital status, family status, religion, national origin, or ancestry.

It reads, specifically "CO Rev Stat § 24-34-601 (2016)(2) (a) It is a discriminatory practice and unlawful for a person, directly or indirectly, to refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry, the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation or, directly or indirectly, to publish, circulate, issue, display, post, or mail any written, electronic, or printed communication, notice, or advertisement that indicates that the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation will be refused, withheld from, or denied an individual or that an individual's patronage or presence at a place of public accommodation is unwelcome, objectionable, unacceptable, or undesirable because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry."

The other issue is about Equal Access to Public Restrooms, which, according to Lambda Legal is about the following: "The solution is quite simple, in theory: Everyone should use the restroom that matches who they are, regardless of whether they are making a gender transition or appear gender nonconforming. But the realities of anti-transgender bias and a widespread lack of understanding about transgender people’s lives can complicate things...Litigation in this area has been gaining traction in the past few years. A decade ago, some courts did not grasp the importance of this issue and saw restrooms as outside the realm of anti-discrimination laws. While a few of these states still have bad decisions on the books, states such as Maine and Colorado have been leading a new charge by recognizing the right of TGNC people to use the restrooms that match who they are both at school and at work."

But what is simple for Lambda Legal and its advocates isn't quite so almighty clear with mainstream heterosexuals who have stated in no uncertain terms that the genitalia you were born with determines who should be using what bathroom.

Now Ask Yourself ... What In the Holy World does Any of that Have to Do with the Passing of Anti-Discrimination Law in Columbus, Georgia?

Underwood doesn't have a clue either. 

But he says that's the overall sense of everything he's heard so far, the best he can tell.

He says he is one of the pioneers of the legal requirement in what he refers to as one of the most segregated cities in the state of Georgia, which he says is a shame considering that it is the second largest city in the state and Atlanta, along with several other cities such as Athens, Statesboro, Savannah, Smyrna, Doraville, and Hapeville have passed these anti-discrimination ordinances in their towns, and even Augusta and Macon, he stated, at least put it on the books for city workers. He also said that progressive cities like Charlotte, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh, NC, have also passed the same types of anti-discrimination laws.

The Ordinance, in general, was to allow for a five-member panel made up of citizens and/or lawyers and/or judges who would decide on the filing of a discrimination complaint through mediation rather than going through an entire legal process and let each case speak for itself. Details on how that would work here were forthcoming, but the Ordinance that was scheduled for August 24 has been circumstantially "canned." At least for the time being.

Underwood said -at one point- that he considered working the ordinance from the same direction as Augusta and Macon and limit it to city employees, but was told it should actually be passed "as is" from a model drafted from the same ordinances as other cities.

Walker Garrett, City Councilman for District Eight (8), drafted the original ordinance and a first reading took place in the Spring of 2020, according to Underwood, but recently, Garrett also made an impassioned plea among his own constituents for support of the ordinance after he stated that he received so much hate mail about it that he had a 'mini-stroke' because of the stress of being attacked by vehement opposition.

Two things are resolutely astounding about the vitriol, especially if it's coming from the religious community -which should be about the love and business of God- and most particularly when it's coming from the same religious faction that was once a beneficiary of the Civil Rights Movement itself, during a time when the violence and hatred was spewed against African-American citizens in this very same city.

So Why Have An Ordinance Here When Federal Laws Already Cover Anti-Discrimination?

Under the Civil Rights laws, ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act), Fair Housing laws, Fair Credit Act and so many other federal protections, why is it that we need just 'one more law' on the books, especially with certain political factions being so anti-government?

True enough, no law can legislate heart-hatred, but what would make any religious entity come all the way out of a pulpit just to politicize a love mandate that is already written in the Word of God? #ICorinthians13.

Underwood says that Columbus has not changed much from the days of Mason-Dixon lines, North versus South ... drawing highly partisan boundaries and income stratification across the board ... and the words on the "My Columbus Voice" website don't seem to fall far from that observational apple tree.

"This is NOT an ordinance that simply protects African Americans, Jews, and Veterans in hiring and housing practices. Those provisions are to be welcomed and applauded. However, we do not believe that civil rights should be an issue that offers preferential treatment to the LBGTQI+ identity. The ordinance contains other restrictions that will be harmful to First Amendment rights and will adversely impact the local small business owners."

Marty O. Wynn, who claims to hold ownership to the website is also quoted in a public Facebook forum "...the Ordinance that Councilman Walker has introduced. It is very poorly worded and will open a Pandora's box that will not be able to be shut. The wording of it will allow protection for pedophiles. It will permit discrimination by businesses with less than 15 employees. It will force religious entities to hire people for non-religious positions (i.e., Janitor, Secretary, Lawncare, etc), who do not have the same faith practice."

While Wynn appears to be saying he holds forward that no one should rightly discriminate against the LGBTQI community, he also doesn't seem to care for any laws that enforce and disallow that discrimination. 

From there, the online conversation gets a bit more confusing, especially for those who leapfrog the conversation about anti-discrimination into ideas about being forced to share gender-specific bathrooms and bake cakes for same-sex weddings and transgender celebrations, which is against some people's moral interests and religious beliefs; but Wynn is careful to include his beliefs about how such an ordinance would be 'disastrous' for the Columbus economy and unfair to small businesses.

On the converse, the Center for American Progress says "There’s a price to be paid for workplace discrimination—$64 billion. That amount represents the annual estimated cost of losing and replacing more than 2 million American workers who leave their jobs each year due to unfairness and discrimination. A significant number of those workers are gay and transgender individuals who have been treated unfairly simply because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. According to a recent survey, fully 42 percent of gay individuals say they have experienced some form of employment discrimination at some point in their lives. Transgender workers face even higher rates of workplace discrimination and harassment. An astonishing 90 percent of transgender individuals report experiencing some form of harassment, mistreatment, or discrimination on the job, or taking actions such as hiding who they are to avoid it. This includes 47 percent who said they had experienced an adverse job outcome such as being fired, denied employment, or not receiving a deserved promotion because of their gender identity. Unfortunately it remains perfectly legal in a majority of states to fire someone because they are gay or transgender. Only 21 states and the District of Columbia have outlawed employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and only 16 states and the District of Columbia have done so on the basis of gender identity..."

And that's just for starters.

As a matter of information, any business entity that is looking for a place to take their business that already has these anti-discrimination laws on the books can easily find them at MAP: Movement Advance Project.

Contrary to Wynn's explanation, businesses shying away from these anti-discrimination laws are not trending, but major business, in fact, are calling for and demanding it.

Hundreds of U.S. businesses call for LGBT+ anti-discrimination law

QUOTE:

NEW YORK, April 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Tech giants Amazon, Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday were among some 400 companies to call for U.S. lawmakers to pass a key LGBT+ rights bill that would extend equal healthcare, housing and goods and services rights to all Americans. 

LGBT+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said 416 firms, worth a total of $8.6 trillion, had joined its Business Coalition for the Equality Act, asking the upper house Senate to pass legislation to protect LGBT+ Americans from discrimination.

The Equality Act, which passed the House of Representatives in February, amends the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity for protection alongside race, religion, sex and national origin.

“Employers care about their employees’ ability to rent an apartment, send their kids to school, visit the dentist, and pick up the groceries free from discrimination,” HRC president Alphonso David said in a statement.

Businesses and Celebrities Backing Away from Places in the U.S. Where Time Has Apparently Stood Still

More to the point, as time moves forward, more and more people and businesses are publicly avoidance-listing states and communities where obvious voter restriction and anti- anti-discrimination laws are taking place nationwide.

Movements like this -vast and spreading- only gain more traction as time goes on, so sooner or later, according to all accounts written and unspoken, Columbus will likely only continue to lose economic acuity because of it.

The rest remains to be seen, but there may be more to it in the coming months than "wedding cakes and public bathrooms", or even pseud0-Christian demons that go "bump" in the night --that much is a mathematical certainty.

"African-Americans, Jews and Veterans" notwithstanding and badly worded, that statement from Wynn alone said more than it needed to and simply handed another written trump card to the apparently winning opposite side.

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