St. Petersburg on Thursday became one of a handful of Florida cities to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and it did so with far less rancor than other, similar efforts in the Tampa Bay area.

Of more than 45 members of the public who spoke to the City Council, just one person opposed protecting gays, lesbians and bisexuals under the city's Human Rights Ordinance. The new rules ban discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations.

The well-organized opposition by political and religious groups prominent in similar discussions during the past decade in Hillsborough and Tampa just wasn't there. (Tampa has the protections; Hillsborough County repealed such a law in 1995.)

"We were thinking, all right, where's the other side?" City Council member Richard Kriseman said. "That one guy got up, and it was, 'Okay, there's that one person.' "

After the four-hour hearing Thursday, the council voted 6-2 to add sexual orientation language to its law, becoming at least the sixth Florida city to do so. Council members Bill Foster and Earnest Williams voted no, though Williams was not opposed to protecting gays, just to making that new protection apply to government employees.

Mayor Rick Baker, who has consistently opposed adding the sexual orientation language, said afterward that he does not plan to veto the change. As things stood Thursday, it was obvious the council has the votes to override him.

If Baker does not veto the new ordinance by 5 p.m. Jan. 10, it will automatically take effect.

Much of the public comment Thursday was about whether to go beyond sexual orientation and add cross-dressers, transsexuals and other "transgender" people to those protected by the ordinance. The council ultimately declined.

The change the City Council did make Thursday extended city civil rights protections beyond the categories in state and federal laws. Those laws cover race, disability and gender but not sexual orientation.

Baker and Foster both spoke against stretching local law beyond those bounds. But the absence of a vocal bloc of opponents from the public surprised scholars who closely monitor such debates.

"I am surprised that the more traditional church groups in particular wouldn't organize against it," said Jim Button, a professor of political science at the University of Florida and co- author of a book on debates over gay rights.

UF religion professor David Gray Hackett, agreed. "It is true that conservative Christians are becoming aware there are homosexuals in their midst, which has given them some pause," he said. "But they remain doctrinaire in their opposition to it."

Florida Family Association executive director David Caton has been at the center of opposition to sexual orientation protections in Hillsborough and Tampa. He did appear at previous St. Petersburg council meetings to oppose the ordinance, arguing that such protections would serve no purpose. But he was not present Thursday.

"It was very clear this ordinance was going to pass (after) the 7- 1 vote" council members took at the ordinance's first reading last month, Caton said. He said the attention gay rights groups receive during the debates of such proposals outweigh any benefit they receive from the ordinance.

His group did not try to organize a turnout for the public hearing, deciding not "to waste the aggravation and time and money and resources over an ordinance that when enacted, is irrelevant," Caton said.

When asked Thursday afternoon, Park Street Baptist Church Pastor Dennis W. Jennings said he had not heard about the sexual orientation proposal.

"I was not aware of it at all," said the St. Petersburg pastor. "That's not unusual for me, sadly. We would have and should have come out and opposed it, I'm sure."

But another Southern Baptist pastor said he saw no reason to lobby against the change.

"No matter what a person's lifestyle may be, I think we ought not be prejudiced against them," the Rev. Fred Cooley of Friendship Baptist Church in St. Petersburg said in a phone interview.

Baker's pastor, D. Scott Boggs of Northside Baptist Church, spoke out on the issue during a luncheon at his church in May. Boggs encouraged a multidenominational group of 25 pastors to stand with him and uphold "a 3,500-year Judeo-Christian principal of opposing homosexuality and lesbianism as a valid lifestyle." His remarks offended several ministers, who left the meeting after a testy exchange. Boggs could not be reached Thursday.

Assuming there is no veto, the new protection is unlikely to result in a flood of new discrimination complaints.

St. Petersburg Community Affairs Director Clarence Scott III said one or two people ask about filing a sexual orientation discrimination complaint each year. His office has had to turn people away with no law on the books.

"It has not been our experience," said Fred Hearns, administrator of Tampa's Office of Human Rights and Community Services. Of the 83 discrimination complaints the Tampa office received in 2001, only three alleged sexual-orientation discrimination.

Hearns said sexual orientation became a protected class under city law in 1992. "I think it's only a matter of time before it becomes state law," he said.

The St. Petersburg City Council amended the city's human rights ordinance Thursday to protect people from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation, in addition to factors such as race, national origin, disability and gender already in the ordinance.

"Sexual orientation means an individual's actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality."

Jan 4, 2002

Mayor Opposes City Council's Gay Rights Vote

By CARLOS MONCADA
cmoncada@tampatrib.com

ST. PETERSBURG - Gays, lesbians and bisexuals were added to the city's antidiscrimination law Thursday, but not transsexuals, cross-dressers or other transgender people.

The city council voted 6-2 to include ``sexual orientation'' in the protection against discrimination in housing and employment, although Mayor Rick Baker said he opposes the measure and might veto it.

``I do not support discrimination in any form,'' Baker said. ``But I believe the city has a responsibility to balance the rights of all our citizens.''

By adding sexual orientation as a protected status, ``the city is requiring that a portion of our community must support and protect a lifestyle which is expressly rejected by the tenets of their religious beliefs,'' said Baker, a Baptist.

Even if Baker vetoes the ordinance, it appears the council has the required three- fourths supermajority to override a mayoral veto.

The city's 20-year-old human rights ordinance already includes race, color, religion, ancestry, sex, national origin, age, disability, place of birth and marital status. It defines sexual orientation as ``an individual's actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality.''

Thursday's vote came after a three-hour hearing, during which nearly 50 people called on St. Petersburg to become the nation's 38th city to extend antidiscrimination laws for people who have had sex changes, cross-dressers and others whose gender identity differs from their biological sex.

Some told stories of discrimination and harassment.

Jessica Archer, of the gay rights group Equality Florida, said a motorist outside city hall verbally abused two transgendered residents and threatened to kill one after they left a council meeting on the amendment Dec. 20.

``That happened right outside this door,'' Archer told the council. ``And yes, if you add gender identity to this ordinance, it won't cover that. But you will send a message that transgendered people count.''

But the council debate was mainly about whether the city and other governmental entities should be exempt from the ordinance, not whether to include gender identity.

With Bill Foster and Earnest Williams dissenting, the council opted to provide no exemption for governments - despite uncertainty about whether the city has jurisdiction to enforce the measure against entities such as the county or school board.

``Discrimination is discrimination,'' Councilman Richard Kriseman said. ``And government shouldn't exempt itself.''

Gay issues long have been kindling for controversy in Tampa.

In 1991, the city and county enacted similar measures banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Tampa voters repealed the city measure in 1992. But the Florida Supreme Court ruled the repeal petition had too few valid signatures, so the city began enforcing the law again in October 1993.

Hillsborough commissioners repealed the county law in 1995.

Reporter Carlos Moncada can be reached at (727) 823-3412. Editor Ken Koehn contributed to this report.

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