News Item

Anti-Gay Group Seeks to Overturn Allentown Human Rights Ordinance

7/24/03

Last year, Allentown, Pennsylvania, joined a growing number of jurisdictions extending nondiscrimination protection to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people in such areas as housing and employment. The ink had barely dried before an anti-gay organization, Citizens for Traditional Values (CTV), began gathering signatures to force repeal of the ordinance or to place a repeal referendum before city voters. The effort failed when the Allentown City Council agreed with the City Clerk that 637 petition signatures were invalid. That was the number of voters who said that they had been duped into signing the petition through fraudulent and misleading information. They were led to believe the petition was pro-gay.

Citizens for Traditional Values is trying again, filing a lawsuit to overturn the Allentown ordinance on the basis of violating the Pennsylvania constitution.

The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) decries efforts to legalize the firing of and denial of other civil rights to GLBT citizens. "Apparently this conservative group - CTV - has nothing better to do than to force local jurisdictions to spend taxpayer funds to defend specious and frivolous lawsuits," said Vanessa Edwards Foster, chair of NTAC. "Even if a law is passed with a fair and democratic process, CTV seems to believe they can continue calling for new votes and challenging it in court again and again, city funds be damned."

Details of the suit were not immediately available, according to Steve Black of the Pennsylvania Gay and Lesbian Alliance (PA-GALA). Councilwoman Gail Hoover had not yet seen the suit but alerted PA-GALA. Black said that PA-GALA intends to take an active Friend of the Court role in defending the ordinance.

Black assumes that the CTV suit will claim that the Allentown ordinance is invalid because it is not "substantially similar" to the state Human Rights Law. State law does not yet include protection for sexual orientation or gender-identity. The courts would have to rule on the similarity of the two laws. The decision in this case could impact similar ordinances passed in Erie County, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New Hope, State College and York that include sexual orientation and gender identity.

"I am sure that the Allentown City Council will defend the ordinance," said Black. "PA-GALA will submit a Friend of the Court brief, and I am confident that the ordinance will stand."

Renewed debate and legal action will likely spark interest in current efforts to amend the State Human Rights Law to include protection for sexual orientation, gender-identity or expression.

"If all things were automatically equal, there would be no need for ordinances such as the one in Allentown," said NTAC chair, Foster. "The pending lawsuit by CTV proves that they're still seeking ways to justify their personal prejudices. Someday we hope they'll see that no matter how you slice it, prejudice is wrong."