Glendale businesses to discuss LGBT discrimination ordinance

PHOENIX — The Glendale City Council will hear comments Wednesday night on a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance similar to one already in effect in Phoenix.

The ordinance would prohibit discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on a person’s age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran’s status or disability.

Wednesday’s 6 p.m. meeting at the Glendale Adult Center near Peoria and 59th avenues is geared toward business owners who want to talk about the ordinance.

Phoenix, Tempe, Tucson and Flagstaff have already passed similar ordinances. An LGBT civil rights group would like to see the rest of the state’s cities do the same thing.

“Sixty-three percent of Arizonans, unfortunately, still live in an area where there are no non-discrimination protections that apply to employment, to housing, to hotels and restaurants,” Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, said. “That is something that we need to change.”

Sainz said even though gay marriage is now legal in Arizona, gays can still be discriminated against.

“LGBT Arizonans can get married,” he said. “It’s the law of the land. But the unfortunate fact is that you can married at 10 (a.m.), say, and in 63 percent of Arizona cities, you can get fired from your job at 2 (p.m.), simply for having gotten married.”

Sainz did not provide any evidence that is happening.

Opponents of the ordinance said it’s just a waste of time.

“There are not any cases of people being denied housing, being denied jobs, that requires an ordinance to be passed that threatens fundamental freedoms for businesses and people of faith,” Aaron Baer, a spokesman for the Center for Arizona Policy, said.

Baer called Glendale’s proposed ordinance a “solution to a problem that isn’t happening.”

Baer believes the ordinance could cause big problems for business owners. He cited a story of a florist in Washington who had done business with a gay customer for 10 years, but refused to provide flowers for that person’s wedding because she believed marriage should be between one man and one woman.

“Because of an ordinance like the one the city of Phoenix passed, this 70-year-old grandmother, who runs a floral company, now faces losing her business, her retirement, her home, all because she didn’t want to participate in a same-sex wedding,” he said. “She had no problem providing services (to the gay customer), but she just didn’t want to participate in a same-sex wedding.”

Several other meetings are open to public comment:

• June 18: 6 to 8 p.m. at the Glendale Adult Center.

• July 25: 10 a.m. to noon at the Foothills Branch Library, near 59th Avenue and Union Hills Drive.

• July 30: 6 to 8 p.m. at the Renaissance Glendale Hotel and Spa, Solana Ballroom A, near 95th and Maryland avenues.

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