{"id":28233,"date":"2016-06-22T17:48:52","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T00:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/29-testify-in-support-of-equal-rights-ordinance\/"},"modified":"2016-06-22T17:48:52","modified_gmt":"2016-06-23T00:48:52","slug":"29-testify-in-support-of-equal-rights-ordinance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/29-testify-in-support-of-equal-rights-ordinance\/","title":{"rendered":"29 testify in support of equal rights ordinance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twice during the 1980s Juneau resident Kristen Bomengen was evicted. The first time, her landlord told her it was because he \u201cdidn\u2019t like her friends.\u201d The second time, a different landlord offered a similarly simple explanation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like your lifestyle,\u201d her landlord said.<\/p>\n

Bomengen, like several others who testified in support of an equal rights ordinance<\/a> at Tuesday\u2019s special Assembly work session, is gay.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first reaction was \u2018You can\u2019t do that,\u2019\u201d Bomengen said, recounting her second eviction in front of a crowd that filled the Assembly Chambers beyond its capacity. \u201cBut she could and she did, and she still could today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recognizing this more than a year ago, Assembly member Jesse Kiehl began drafting a city ordinance that would ban discrimination based on race, color, age, religion, sex, familial status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are folks who came to me and told me their stories, and I think that the broad language in the ordinance dealing with housing and dealing with employment would address their situations,\u201d Kiehl told the Empire in a phone interview shortly before the Assembly work session.<\/p>\n

He introduced his ordinance last week, and it has since gained a lot of support from the community and other Assembly members alike. At Tuesday night\u2019s meeting, held specifically to take public comment on the equal rights ordinance, 29 people testified in favor of the ordinance. A large contingent of those in support belonged to Juneau\u2019s LGBTQ+ population. But several straight people backed the ordinance as well.<\/p>\n

Juneau resident and Alaska House of Representatives hopeful Justin Parish told the Assembly that he isn\u2019t \u201ca central stakeholder\u201d like some of the other testifiers, but straight people also need to support this ordinance as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we remain silent? How can we fail to act?\u201d he asked rhetorically. \u201cI don\u2019t think we can. And I don\u2019t think we will.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Democrat to challenge Munoz this fall<\/a>]<\/p>\n

One man, however, did speak against the ordinance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it ultimately does, and you may not believe it, is it pits people against people,\u201d Tom Williams, the lone dissenter, told the Assembly. The crux of his disagreement with the equal rights ordinance is that it would require landlords like himself to accept low-income housing vouchers, which he currently doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

This will likely be a point of discussion when the ordinance comes before the Assembly again next month. Kiehl said that this portion of the ordinance would prevent discrimination against the poor. But Assembly member Debbie White, who said this was her only problem with the ordinance, sees it as government overreach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think forcing somebody into a very cumbersome government program is very contradictory to everything I believe in, but once again that is my only problem with this ordinance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For the majority of those who testified though, this ordinance, which many called \u201clong overdue,\u201d is about putting an end to discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations and activities.<\/p>\n

Though state and federal laws offer some protection, they fail to protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, according to City Attorney Amy Mead, who helped Kiehl draft the equal rights ordinance. And as Bomengen and several others, including former city manager Kim Kiefer, pointed out, that omission has serious consequences even here in Juneau.<\/p>\n

Juneau resident Mark Hutter, who testified Tuesday, knows about them better than most. About a month ago he was fired from a seafood company where he worked as a fish processor. He wouldn\u2019t provide the name of his former company.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was fired not for the quality of my work, which I am proud of, but because I am gay,\u201d he told the Assembly.<\/p>\n

Hutter said that during the month that he worked at the seafood company, his partner would occasionally join him on his lunch breaks. This caught the attention of his supervisor, who fired him a day later.<\/p>\n

Had it already been enacted, the equal rights ordinance would have given Hutter the ability to sue his employer in state court. If he were to win such a suit, he could be rewarded back pay, front pay or the restoration of his job among other things.<\/p>\n

Because there is no such ordinance on the books currently though, Hutter has no legal recourse. Had he the protection offered by the equal rights ordinance at the time of his firing, Hutter said he would probably have sued. And there may yet be time.<\/p>\n

Under the equal rights ordinance, a person who has been discriminated against in a manner prohibited by city code would have 300 days to file suit against his or her discriminator.<\/p>\n

But until this ordinance, or one similar to it, passes, \u201cThere\u2019s not a damn thing I can do,\u201d Hutter said. And if Tuesday\u2019s meeting is any indicator, he\u2019s not alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twice during the 1980s Juneau resident Kristen Bomengen was evicted. The first time, her landlord told her it was because he \u201cdidn\u2019t like her friends.\u201d The second time, a different landlord offered a similarly simple explanation. \u201cI don\u2019t like your lifestyle,\u201d her landlord said. Bomengen, like several others who testified in support of an equal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":28234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-28233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28233"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}