Council Postpones Vote on Anti-Discrimination Law

Bethlehem City Council voted Tuesday to postpone its final reading and potential adoption of a new Human Relations Law on the recommendation of its solicitor, Christopher Spadoni, who said he needed more time to clarify some of the language of the bill.

Council voted 5-2 in favor of postponing the final reading of the bill until its next regularly scheduled meeting on June 21.

Councilmen David DiGiacinto and J. William Reynolds voted against the postponement.

Reynolds, a supporter of the ordinance, argued that the concern over language currently under review was raised at both the Human Resources and Environment and the last full City Council meeting in May.

“I’m perplexed,” Reynolds said. “I feel (it) should have been researched by now.”

If adopted, the new law aims to prohibit discrimination in the workplace, housing and public facilities as it establishes a Human Relations Commission to enforce the law at a local level. Currently, someone wishing to file a civil rights complaint from Bethlehem would have to take his or her case to the state Human Relations Commission in Harrisburg.

The city bill would also extend civil rights protections to gays, lesbians and transgender people, who are not currently protected under the state law. The Pennsylvania law prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color, sex, religion, ancestry, national origin, handicap or the need to use a guide or support animal.”

However, proponents of the bill argued during Tuesday night’s meeting that the ordinance was amended to render a city Human Relations Commission powerless to enforce any anti-discrimination law and provides too broad of an exemption that would allow faith-based “entities” to ignore the law.

Despite the postponement of a final vote, council, nonetheless, listened to more than 30 people voice their opinions on the bill for more than two hours during its first “courtesy of the floor session.”

Town Hall was once again packed for the session in which everyone in attendance expected a final vote. Most who spoke favored a positive vote for the ordinance, though more who opposed the bill showed up than had in previous sessions.

Most who objected seemed to have religious or moral objections to a law that added protections for gays.

“If my neighbor wanted to marry his horse or if someone else wanted to marry an 8-year-old girl, would that be OK?” asked Mike O’Hare, a West Side resident. “That’s the logical conclusion to all of this.”

Other opponents argued that it made what has been traditionally “immoral” now “moral.”

One person who dismissed these arguments was the Rev. Craig Weidman, pastor of the Hope Alliance Church in Bethlehem. A self-described “conservative evangelical Christian,” Weidman said similar misinterpretations of Scripture were used to justify restricting blacks from entering restaurants.

“I would urge unanimous passage of this law,” Weidman said. “If it singles out anyone to give preferential treatment to, it is to people of religious belief, and it should be that way. But if I operate a restaurant and refuse to serve someone, I have acted immorally.

“I want you to unanimously pass this law to send a loud message to our citizens that discrimination will not be permitted.”

Bethlehem is currently the largest city in Pennsylvania without a Human Relations Ordinance or a Human Relations Commission to address discrimination complaints.

Allentown has had a law since 1964 and amended it in 2002 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Easton adopted its law in 2007. Two counties and 16 other cities in Pennsylvania also have anti-discrimination laws.