Protections for gays, lesbians proposed

Dallas Mayor Laura Miller is proposing an anti-discrimination ordinance that would offer gays and lesbians protection in hiring, housing and public accommodations such as hotels and restaurants.

Ms. Miller said Saturday that the ordinance would go beyond the city's current protections against discrimination in its hiring and employment practices.

Under the proposed ordinance, employers with more than 15 workers would not be allowed to hire, fire or in any other way discriminate against employees on the basis of sexual orientation. Proprietors of hotels, theaters and other public places would not be able to refuse service or segregate their patrons.

Violations would be treated as Class C misdemeanors, punishable with a $200 to $500 fine.

Religious organizations and state and federal offices, among other groups, would be exempt.

"It's a major step forward for the city of Dallas," said Dallas City Council member Ed Oakley, who helped draft the plan with the mayor and three other council members – Dr. Elba Garcia, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem John Loza and Veletta Forsythe Lill.

"Austin and Fort Worth and Houston have already passed these ordinances. ... I think it just brings us into the 21st century," Mr. Oakley said.

Council members will discuss the measure at Wednesday night's meeting. A tentative vote is scheduled for May 8. The mayor and some council members said they think the ordinance will pass.

The city's Fair Housing Office would enforce the ordinance. Two city human resources employees would be moved to the office to help investigate complaints.

Substantiated complaints would be sent to mediation, and those that couldn't be resolved would go to the city attorney's office. But city officials said they didn't expect cases to get that far.

"We wouldn't propose something that we didn't think we could police," Ms. Miller said. "That's why we're putting the limited resources we have into responding to the complaints we have."

In April, when she was a council member, she asked the city attorney's office to draft a possible ordinance, but it ended up tangled in language, she said.

Maria Rubio, president of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance, said Dallas' time for such an ordinance has come.

"We just have more people on the City Council who are behind us than we ever had before. Public perception of us is better now than it ever has been," she said. "I'm ready. I'm just ready for it to go."

Drafters of the ordinance had wanted to create a human rights commission that would investigate complaints, as other cities – including Fort Worth – have done.

That would have cost an additional $750,000 to $1 million, council members said. Budget shortfalls eliminated that possibility for now, but such a panel could be created in the future, they said.

Council member Alan Walne called a possible human rights panel "too much" and said he wouldn't vote for the ordinance.

"If this is just the first step in trying to get to that end, I think that you need to go ahead and resolve that, if that's what you're really doing ... instead of trying to go in the back door," he said. "I think it's totally uncalled for."

Fort Worth City Council member Chuck Silcox, who led the charge for the measure in Fort Worth, applauded Dallas' efforts.

Ms. Lill said Dallas' proposal didn't spring from reports of widespread discrimination.

"We want to make sure that our policy's in place to discourage discrimination," Ms. Lill said. "We also want those who have been discriminated against to know they have a forum to hear their complaints."

Don't ask don't tell works for the military, it can work for you at your job.

I like that I think it will work!!

I don't want to sound too much like sour grapes here but I've had two jobs terminated because I'm a flaming FAMILY MAN and I've worked for gay bosses. In social situations I would talk about kids, schools and family gatherings this made these guys very uncomfortable - they wanted to talk about cruising - which made me uncomfortable. My first boss got very annoyed with my normal "life-style" and as soon as I realized what I was doing I stopped but it was too late.

I don't think I have any discrimination case because what grounds do I have and personality clashes happen all the time. So unless Dallas wants to make a law protecting me I'm not inclined to think anyone else needs any protection.

I have no sympathy for deviants as they should not have, nor deserve the right of "citizen" as they contribute nothing for the future of the country, nor the betterment of society and can only be equated as dead-beats or leeches on society.

Leeches? Dead-beats? Get back to me when you're paying $60,000 in taxes like one homosexual couple with with I am familiar. It's widely regarded that homosexuals have a disproportionately high level of income, and therefore tax burden. While we're at it, as my brother & his wife are a (naturally) childless couple (due to opposite-sex sexual abuse she suffered as a toddler), I guess they contribute just as much "nothing" as a homosexual couple in your mind. Your argument smacks of the hollow words of hate-justifying rationalization for denying the same rights and freedoms to fellow Americans that you or I enjoy. Surely you can do better?

It seems to me, in the secular world of America as a political and social entity where we hold that none are "more equal than others", we should be encouraging homosexuals to court & couple for life, to remain virgins well into adulthood, to act responsibly and, as a sub-culture, denounce anonymous sexual encounters in public places as well as drug use. These are the same HEALTHFUL benefits that are being quickly abandoned by succeeding generations of heterosexuals thanks to so-called feminist indoctrination. The more homosexuals are marginalized, the less mainstream, less responsible their sexual mores will be. This behavioral reaction is true of any group which is "oppressed" or cast aside by the majority. Part of this marginalization comes in the acts of "conservatives" who refuse to acknowledge that public education, by definition, must be inclusive of the homosexual students as well as heterosexual ones.

There's no reason a sexuality-neutral "sex ed" program can't be taught. However, at this point, students themselves, as the culture teaches them, see their sexuality and the responsibilities, needs, etc. in taking charge of that aspect of living as being unique, different from peers if they're homosexual vs. heterosexual. It's laughable to suggest oral sex, for example, is the domain of homosexuals alone. From that study showing an alarming frequency of oral sex among middle school students to Lewinsky to "virgins" who claim to be such because they've never had genital-genital contact...

A school's roll is to educate by imparting facts (e.g. risk factors, biological realities, etc.), offering opportunities to dialog and to encourage development of self-control and self-discipline. Moral and spiritual education is the first the domain of the family. I often wonder where "true conservatives" send their homosexual sons and daughters or do such sons and daughters "cease to exist" because of what God has challenged them somewhat differently in their lives?

It might be wonderful if everyone grew into adulthood with a heterosexual orientation, but that's simply not reality. It hasn't been reality for millennia, if ever. I believe homosexuals *can* control their actions and *act* as heterosexuals (that is, copulate with an opposite-sex partner) but you can play a doctor on TV, that doesn't mean you'd be worth having in an O.R. I can't begin to guess if one can truly love a spouse if that spouse isn't reflective of one's orientation.

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