Refuse Intolerance, Reject Proposition 4

Thu., Oct. 14, 1999

By Doug Floyd dougf@spokesman.com

It has been two and a half years since a group of gay citizens appeared before the Spokane City Council to tell, in public, about some of the indignities they had endured - from harassment to job loss - over their sexual orientation.

They asked their representatives on the council to protect their human rights.

The council was moved but not impulsive. It took no action. Rather, Mayor Jack Geraghty directed the Human Rights Commission to study the issue and make recommendations.

For a year the commission gathered information and worked on a human rights ordinance which it proposed to the council in 1998. Some provisions made council members squirm, however, so they ordered revisions.

In October, they wanted more specifics about enforcement and sent the proposal back again.

When a revised version came to the council in January it received more public hearings. Then, on Jan. 25, the council finally passed a bare-bones plan that outlaws discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations, based on factors that include sexual orientation.

The Spokane City Council didn’t take a stand on homosexuality; it took a stand on justice. And it certainly didn’t act in haste.

Showing none of the City Council’s commitment to deliberation, opponents of the action were back in a month, bent on undoing what the council and Human Rights Commission had spent two thoughtful years doing.

The result is Proposition 4 on the Nov. 2 ballot. It would remove gays and lesbians from the human rights ordinance’s limited protections.

Backers of the measure deny that they favor the discrimination Proposition 4 would legalize. Instead, they warn of unintended consequences, and justify their fears with half-told anecdotes from distant communities, but not from Spokane because our existing ordinance has produced no such evidence.

Critics say passing the measure will reinforce the reputation for intolerance that the Aryan Nations already have given our community. That’s probably true, but what’s more important than the message our vote sends the world is the message our vote sends to us. When we raise our collective voice at the polls, we should use it to proclaim justice, not to condone discrimination.

Proposition 4 is an emotional appeal to fear, insecurity and intolerance. For the sake of civic pride and self-respect we should defeat it.

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