Lewiston has become the 9^th Idaho city to pass an ordinance banning discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, the Lewiston Tribune reports today. The ordinance also bans discrimination based on familial status; it passed on a 5-2 vote of the Lewiston City Council, after an hour and a half of testimony from a standing-room-only crowd.

Lewiston Tribune reporter Joel Mills reports that the public testimony ran about 2-1 in favor of the ordinance, which includes exemptions for religious entities; his full report is online here. Lewiston joins Boise, Ketchum, Moscow, Coeur d’Alene, Pocatello, Idaho Falls, Victor and Sandpoint; Sandpoint was the first, passing its ordinance in December of 2011. Idaho lawmakers have refused to grant a hearing on a bill to add the words "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the Idaho Human Rights Act for nearly a decade, to ban discrimination on those bases; that's prompted cities to act on their own to pass ordinances protecting their residents.