Law protecting gays takes effect

OLYMPIA – Washington on Wednesday became the 17th state to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians, as well as one of just seven that include that protection for transgendered people.

And most people, Equal Rights Washington director Barbara Green predicts, won’t even notice the change.

“After all, most Washingtonians would never deny a person their basic rights simply because they were gay or transgender,” Green said.

That’s how many advocates for the new law read Tuesday’s collapse of a referendum attempt to veto it: as a sign of increasing acceptance of sexual minorities.

People today are increasingly likely to know gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered people, said Green. She thinks the public saw the measure as an attempt to take away rights “from hard-working Washingtonians who make up the fabric of our society.”

“I think a lot of people are breathing a sigh of relief. We don’t want to be known as a state that actively discriminates,” said the Rev. Andy CastroLang at Spokane’s Westminster Congregational United Church of Christ.

Conservative church leaders unhappy with the new law say they’re not defending bigotry. Gays and lesbians already enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals, they say.

“We believe they’re already protected, therefore it’s not a civil rights issue,” said Alec Rowlands, an Edmonds pastor.

He and other critics see the law as a legal tool to push for same-sex marriage and to silence criticism of homosexuality.

“We feel that this is the last little mechanism that needs to be in place to open the floodgates with marriage,” said Rick Forcier, executive director of the state’s Christian Coalition. He and other conservative leaders are pondering another try to veto the new law with a statewide vote.

Now law, House Bill 2661 expands the jurisdiction of the state’s Human Rights Commission, which hears discrimination complaints and enforces the law. The state has long banned discrimination based on race, national origin, sex, disability and other factors. But lawmakers repeatedly balked at adding sexual orientation to that list. Last year, the proposal failed by a single vote.

This year, Sen. Bill Finkbeiner, R-Kirkland, saying he’d had a change of heart, voted for the measure.

The law bans discrimination in employment, housing, public places, real estate, credit and insurance.

Sexual orientation is defined in the state code not only as being gay, lesbian or bisexual, but also as one’s “gender expression or identity” – a category that covers transgendered people or anyone else with a self-image, behavior or appearance different from those traditionally associated with that person’s gender at birth.

It includes an exemption for people seeking roommates and states that the law has no bearing on the state’s marriage laws.

Still, many conservatives remain uncomfortable.

“As a landlord, to rent to a homosexual is tough, because you look like you’re condoning it,” said Randy Yates, a Spokane man. “And homosexuality is a sin.”

Until the referendum organizers failed to get enough signatures Tuesday, both sides of the issue had been bracing for a five-month campaign.

“I think it would have been hard,” said Brad Read, Spokane Coordinator for Washington Won’t Discriminate. “But I think we would have won.”