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LGBT ordinance opponents, supporters react to Charlotte council vote

On the morning after Charlotte City Council’s close vote to defeat a proposed nondiscrimination ordinance, grateful opponents and disappointed supporters both said their focus has now shifted to the future.

Those who favored the ordinance, which would have legally protected gays, lesbians and transgender persons, vowed to keep pushing for the full measure.

“Ultimately it’s going to pass,” said the Rev. Robin Tanner, pastor of Piedmont Unitarian Universalist Church and a member of the Clergy for Equality Coalition. “I know that the soul of our city will prevail.”

Tanner said her feelings Tuesday morning were exactly what she remembers feeling in 2012 after North Carolina voters passed Amendment One, a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. That proved to be a temporary defeat for her side – a federal judge paved the way for gay marriage in the state in 2014 – “and we’ll move forward as we have in the past,” Tanner said.

Those opposed to the ordinance said other North Carolina cities should take what happened at Charlotte City Council as a warning shot.

“We are very pleased with the Charlotte City Council’s decision to reject the ordinance which proposed burdens on religious small business owners and would have endangered our communities,” Jim Quick, a spokesman for “Don’t Do It Charlotte,” said in a statement. “Now that this ordinance has been stopped in North Carolina’s largest city we hope other cities are emboldened to continue to boldly stand for religious liberty across North Carolina.”

The Rev. Mark Harris, pastor at First Baptist Church of Charlotte, said he also hopes that Charlotte city leaders learned a lesson for the future: That all voices should be included the next time such a controversial ordinance is considered.

For the nondiscrimination ordinance, Harris said, the city worked with LGBT leaders to craft the measure, shutting out conservative faith and business leaders.

“This was just purely presented and driven by MeckPAC (an LGBT group),” Harris said. “Any process in the future could involve voices on all sides.”

Monday’s council meeting, which drew more than 100 speakers and often divisive comments, also evoked reactions from both sides Tuesday.

Most of the comments focused on a section that would have allowed transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they identified with. Before the final 6-5 vote, the council removed that section from the ordinance.

“It was disappointing to hear all the rhetoric (about the bathroom issue),” said Paige Dula of Genderlines, a support group for transgender persons. “I had expected it, but I hadn’t expected it to be so vitriolic. I found it very hurtful.”

But Harris, who spoke at an opponents’ rally before the council meeting, said he was “very surprised, and pleasantly so” when the council rejected the ordinance.

“I feel like Charlotte is a very tolerant city,” Harris said. “This (move for an ordinance) was more of a solution looking for a problem.”

But the Charlotte Non-Discrimination Ordinance Coalition, which had spearheaded and supported the full ordinance, released a statement condemning the council for what it considered caving in to scare tactics by opponents who want to move Charlotte “backward, not forward.”

For the second time in our city’s history, Charlotte City Council has shown it does not have the courage or the conviction to stand for fairness and equality,” the group, including MeckPAC, said. “More than two decades ago, council members shamelessly rejected similar public accommodations protections. In repeating that sad legacy on Monday, council chose to listen to the divisive, prejudiced rhetoric of out-of-town special interests who have been behind recent attacks on the rights of LGBT people across the state and across the country.”

The coalition vowed in its statement to keep lobbying the city council for the changes voted down Monday night. “This coalition . . . will bring (the changes) back to city leaders for future consideration.”

In the end, after the section affecting bathrooms was dropped, two council members who had supported the full ordinance voted against the amended version.

Those council members, Democrats Lawana Mayfield and John Autry, also were the only votes against the move to remove the bathroom section.

Tanner said Mayfield and Autry faced “a difficult decision” when it came time to vote on the amended ordinance.

“What I saw … was moral courage,” she said, “from the transgender people who spoke, and from council members Autry and Mayfield, who stood up for the full ordinance.”

Dula of Genderlines expressed support for Mayfield’s decision to vote against the final version. “The amendment (to remove the bathroom section) would have gutted a significant portion of the ordinance.”

The next step for supporters? “ I guess we step back and lick our wounds,” Dula said. “The coalition will regroup and see what our next steps are in trying to get this ordinance. Because we’re not giving up.”

But, in its statement, the Charlotte Non-Discrimination Ordinance Coalition merely thanked “our council champions and those who voted for the measure, placing equality over discrimination.”

The experience of other cities suggests the next step could be in the courts or the state legislature.

In Houston, where Mayor Annise Parker is a lesbian, the city council passed a nondiscrimination ordinance extending protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity and expression. But the issue is now in court.

And after voters in Fayetteville, Ark., voted to rescind that city council’s approval of a nondiscrimination ordinance, the Arkansas legislature sought to cement that repeal by voting to prohibit cities and counties from implementing nondiscrimination policies covering gays, lesbians and transgender people.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article12142055.html#storylink=cpy

Source: TFUNK@CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM