Northern Kentucky could have its tenth city to enact what is commonly referred to as a fairness ordinance, extending legal protections against discrimination for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
The Union city commission takes up the issue on Monday night and would be the first Boone County community to adopt such legislation.
In recent years, the local region has tallied a swift increase of communities where municipal governments have passed a fairness ordinance. Covington was the first local city to do so, and third in Kentucky, when it adopted its human rights ordinance in 2003.
It took sixteen years for the next local one, but Dayton acted in 2019 followed closely by Bellevue, Highland Heights, Fort Thomas, Cold Spring, Newport, Crescent Springs, and Fort Mitchell.
“Almost half the cities that fairness ordinances now are in Northern Kentucky,” said Chris Hartman, executive director of the Fairness Campaign, a statewide LGBT advocacy organization.
There are twenty-three cities or counties in Kentucky with such legislation. Nine are in Northern Kentucky.
“If Union approves the measure, they’d be the first in Boone Co. to do so and that would be historic,” Hartman said.
Hartman said that he is unsure which way the five-member Union city commission might vote. Often the outcomes on this particular type of legislation are known beforehand.
Even Commission Brian Garner, a primary proponent of the fairness ordinance in Union, is unsure of how his fellow commissioners may vote.
“For me, it was probably a couple of years ago that I had noticed that other cities in Northern Kentucky had started to pass fairness ordinances and it wasn’t just one-off cities that I wasn’t familiar with, it was other well-known cities that had great reputations around here, and I thought, well, Union is a great city and we could be just like them,” Garner said. “The message it sends to people is about how welcoming the community is and the expectations we have. It felt like something we could do.”
A first reading of the legislation was held at a meeting in December. The second reading – and vote – is set for Monday.
Garner worked closely with Hartman and the Fairness Campaign on the issue.
“Everybody expects equality and I think a lot of people assume that the laws are equal and the protections are equal, but ultimately, it’s not,” Garner said.
The legislation is more than a symbolic gesture, Hartman said. The ordinances add sexual orientation and gender identity to discrimination protections in employment, housing, and public accommodations.
“I think a lot of people think they are symbolic, and in a way, they are, but it sends the message that the community is open for everyone and it will respect the dignity of everyone who lives there and comes to patronize the businesses in the community, and just generally enjoy the city,” Hartman said. “That’s the message all the surrounding cities in Northern Kentucky have sent as they passed their ordinances.
“But aside from protections, this builds that bigger argument for a statewide anti-discrimination fairness law.”
Efforts at the state level have failed each year in the General Assembly.
In Union, population around 6,000, the feedback has been positive, Commissioner Garner said.
“I was kind of nervous,” said Garner, who was born and raised in Florence, and attended twelve years of Catholic school (St. Paul, then St. Henry). “Even as conservative as it is, in the conversations with people, (it’s been positive).”
Each government can apply its fairness ordinance differently, with similar goals and outcomes in mind. In Covington, the city established a human rights commission that hears complaints. In Union, if passed, there would not be such a commission. Rather, an arbitrator would handle complaints, if necessary. Violations could result in a financial penalty of $500.
“The goal is not a harsh punishment,” Garner said. “You want to have a resolution before it gets to that point, to have them sit down and talk about what’s going on.”
Hartman said that statewide, most complaints under a fairness ordinance are mediated before ever coming before a hearing officer.
In Union, that would only be relevant if the commission acts affirmatively on Monday. Fairness ordinances have been voted down in other communities. Hartman cites lost votes in Bowling Green, Owensboro, Berea, and Richmond.
Locally, the City of Park Hills floated the possibility of a fairness ordinance and held some presentations on the issue, but a vote was never taken.
Outside of the commission, there are supporters in the community who plan to speak Monday in favor of the fairness ordinance. One is Reverend Lisa Stenner of Union Presbyterian Church.
“For me, it’s a faith issue that all people are beloved children of God and it’s unfortunate how we acknowledge that people are othered by race or gender or age or ability and issues of sexuality have been that last bastion for people to be prejudiced to each other,” Stenner said. “No matter what you think about any part of an issue, our call as Christians is to love other people. At the end of the day it’s as simple as not being a jerk.”
Stenner said that her Union church has “been on a journey” since same-sex marriage was legalized in the United States through a 2015 Supreme Court decision. “Our leadership took almost a year of study, prayer, conversation, and came out on the side of being welcoming and affirming,” she said. Stenner has performed same-sex weddings at the church.
Both Garner and Stenner look at the small-town Union, a once rural area turned suburban bedroom community of Cincinnati, as place ready for a fairness ordinance.
“Union is more diverse than it might look on the surface and I think there is an assumption that this area is politically and spatially very conservative, and I’m not sure that that’s true,” Stenner said. She sees the vote on Monday as an opportunity to attract businesses that celebrate diversity. “To have a fairness ordinance and vote it down, would be a very negative message.”
“My whole purpose of getting into government was to show that it can work,” said Commissioner Garner. “It doesn’t have to be us versus them.”
He referred to the city commission as “five regular guys trying to figure stuff out and how to make it work.”
“I truly think if you took five people in the City of Union, I think they could get it to work. I want it to work,” he said.
Written by Michael Monks, editor & publisher
Photo via City of Union
