Last night, Proposition 622 to amend the Human Rights ordinance passed out of committee by a vote of 5 to 3. It will be voted on in the full committee in a special session on Monday night. I’ll post details of time and room as soon as I hear them. Here are the undecided councilors that need to hear from people before Monday:
Ron Gibson (D) rgibson@indygov.org
Patrice Abduallah (D) pabduall@indygov.org
Lynn McWhirter (R) L8638@aol.com
Suzie Day (R) susieday20@yahoo.com
Marilyn Pfisterer (R) (distant maybe)
Bob Cochrum (R) (distant maybe) 856-5549
Mike Speedy (R) (distant maybe) m.speedy@sbcglobal.net
We kicked butt last night. The gay community in Indianapolis really rose to the occasion and gave strong testimony and coherent arguments. I found myself saying “that’s a really good point!” on about ten different occasions during testimony.
There were about 2 of our supporters for every one of theirs, and they hauled out the same lame, illogical, irrelevant arguments that they did last week. I’m totally proud of the GLBT community. You’re rock stars, people.
The local media, however, sucked raw eggs. Fox was the only news station that covered the committee hearing well. Channel 6 had lots of coverage; all of it was yellow journalism, showed dis-proportionate speakers. They also kept airing the “there are already laws on the books” argument — there AREN’T laws on the books to cover this. I didn’t see anything on Channel 8, and Channel 13 had a 10 second overview. The IndyStar has a decent article on the issue, but with the completely lame headline: “Gay Rights plan stands chance of passing this time.”
IT’S NOT A GAY RIGHTS PLAN. It’s a human rights plan, and the ordinance also has changes for people with disabilities, veterans of any war (not just vietnam) and it also covers STRAIGHT people — making it clear you can’t be fired for any sexual orientation or PERCIEVED sexual orientation. Yes there are straight people fired because people think they’re gay.