Senate Panel Balks at Adding Gays to Anti-Discrimination Law
ASenate committee rejected a bill that would have banned workplace discrimination against government employees who are gay.
Gay workers at state agencies are protected from discrimination in hiring and promotions by an executive order issued by Mark R. Warner (D) in December, the month before he left the governor's office, and renewed by his successor, Timothy M. Kaine (D). Two Democratic senators proposed making those protections a permanent part of state law and extending them to employees of local governments, school boards and sheriff's offices.
Voting 6 to 8, the General Laws Committee blocked Senate Bill 700, which was co-sponsored by Sens. Mamie Locke (D-Hampton) and L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth).
Every governor since the early 1970s has issued an executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, religion and sex in hiring and promotions at state agencies. Warner amended that order to include sexual orientation.
Locke and Lucas argued that the protections should be part of the state code, not subject to an executive order that must be renewed every four years. They said, too, that discrimination in hiring and promotions should be barred at the local level.
"Protecting Virginia's gay and lesbian workers from discrimination is not a radical idea," Locke told the committee. "It simply makes good sense."
Senators who voted against the measure said they opposed extending state statutes beyond federal law, which protects workers on the basis of race, religion and gender but not sexual orientation. They also said they feared litigation from workers claiming the new protections.
The committee debate veered at one point into theology, as Jack Knapp , of the Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptists, told the panel his group opposed the workplace protection because "the activities are against the teaching of the word of God, and that settled it for us."
That prompted Sen. Yvonne B. Miller (D-Norfolk) to say to Knapp that "the most telling characteristic of God is love" and to ask whether his answer was a "loving answer."
Knapp told her it was, because "love includes truth and God is the God of love, but he's also the God of truth."
Where There's Smoke . . .
The Virginia Senate rejected a bill that would have restricted smoking in most public buildings and given local governments the ability to ban smoking in restaurants. Moments later, however, senators revived the idea and said they will discuss it again within days.
Several senators said they were uncomfortable with the notion of creating a patchwork of regulations in which restaurants in one county might be forced to prohibit smoking while restaurants in neighboring counties could allow it. Some said they might instead support a statewide ban on smoking in restaurants.
