The Winston-Salem Journal on the city passing non-discrimination resolutions and ordinances:
Kudos to the city of Winston-Salem for passing a raft of non-discrimination resolutions and ordinance amendments on Monday. The changes will make for a more accepting and equitable community and that can only help us in the long run — especially as we recover from the current pandemic and economic downturn.
We now join several other North Carolina cities like Greensboro, Chapel Hill, Durham and Hillsborough that have already enacted various non-discrimination ordinances.
The changes mean that transgender people, as well as gays and lesbians, will have protections from discrimination by city departments and officials. Sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression will be explicitly added to the city’s fair housing ordinance.
The amendments also grant protections based on “protected hairstyles” that are associated with race, including “braids, locks, twists, tight coils or curls, cornrows, Bantu knots and afros.”
Contracts with businesses hired by the city will include non-discrimination provisions and the city will “encourage corporate and individual community partners to oppose discrimination in all forms.”
Over the next 100 days, the city will study the extent to which it can enforce the same non-discrimination policies on the private sector. That will, no doubt, raise some hackles, but in the long run, it’s for the best.
“We must challenge those laws,” council member Kevin Mundy said. “So many laws, especially when it comes to civil rights, municipalities and states challenge the federal government. At some point soon, we will be on the right side of history when we make sure that I and my fellow members of the LGBTQ community have the same rights as everyone else.”
Some have claimed that there’s no actual threat to LGBTQ people. They and their experiences say otherwise.
“Most people don’t realize that individuals can be denied health care, lose jobs or face other forms of discrimination for things like wearing a natural hairstyle or being pregnant,” Chris Smith, a member of a coalition that worked for the passage of the ordinances, told the Journal earlier this month. “So, we believe it’s important to make this ordinance broad enough to cover folks who fall through the cracks when it comes to protections — as other cities and counties in North Carolina have done.”
Last June, the Trump administration tried to eliminate federal health care and health insurance protections for LGBTQ people, which would have allowed medical providers to refuse to treat them. Federal courts blocked the attempt.
In North Carolina, the state legislature attempted to write discrimination against LGBTQ people into law, with HB 2, the notorious 2016 “bathroom bill,” which would have sent transgender people into uncomfortable and threatening situations.
Fortunately, after a business and cultural boycott of North Carolina brought a little sobriety to the state legislature, HB 2 was revised.
We’ve commented before on the detrimental effect such policies have on the economy. Inclusion creates a better business atmosphere than exclusion. But there’s a moral component that’s equally important.
We’re aware that some people have sincere religious objections to protections for “sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.” We respect their right to hold their religious beliefs. We also know that they’re likely to frame the issue quite differently — it’ll be about them and their rights rather than the rights of transgender people.
Some Americans similarly had sincere religious objections to racial integration at one point, but as a society, we saw that the common good outweighed their objections.
Religious freedom is a bedrock American principle — but it shouldn’t be the card that’s played to interfere with someone else’s religious or civic freedom.
When it comes to public accommodations — or simple commerce — contributing members of society should have the same rights regardless of sexual or gender orientation. There’s a much greater threat to a free and fair society from discriminating against them than from treating them with respect and dignity.
— Winston-Salem Journal