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LGBT Housing And Employment Protections Bill Passes Ohio House

09/15/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
The Equal Housing and Employment Non-Discrimination Act or HR176 in Ohio passed today by a vote of 56-35. Six Republicans crossed sides to vote for the bill. The bill will protect people who are gay, lesbian or transgender from discrimination with regards to housing and employment. However, the bill faces a far darker future in the Ohio Senate where the Republican Party holds sway, and Senate President Bill Harris has openly questioned whether or not such protections are warranted.

Support for the EHEA is strong in Ohio with roughly two thirds of all Ohioans supporting these protections and only one third opposing it. The Ohio Constitution forbids both same-sex marriage and civil unions currently.

“Other people are getting that evidence and information (of discrimination), but I am not. I talk to business people all the time, and they’re saying it’s not an issue. If they had trouble with it, they’d be trying to get a law passed,” Harris has said. In truth, he has the back of many businesses who do not want another set of laws which restrict their ability to fire people that they do not like. Typically they site lawsuits as being the reason they oppose any new anti-discrimination laws. Statistically speaking, there have not been any real uptick of lawsuits regarding discrimination based upon similar laws.

Some Republicans feared that churches could be targeted unfairly under this law and that there were no strong exemptions with regards to the hiring practices of churches. One Rep. Lynn R. Wachtmann R- Napoleon stated that the bill supporters should “keep your immoral beliefs to yourself. You want to punish people who don’t believe the way you do.” Another Republican representative felt that it was an attempt to force people to accept what he believed was immoral.

The probability is that the bill will not be voted upon until after the May primary simply because most Ohio senators are not under any threat from Democrats, but are vulnerable in their own primaries.