Nine months after Kokomo city council president Bob Hayes, vice president Mike Kennedy and then-council-candidate Steve Whikehart said they supported expanding protections against sexual-orientation and gender-identity discrimination within the city, Whikehart revealed last month the council’s Public Works and Welfare Committee is composing legislation to do just that.
Such an ordinance would put Kokomo in the company of 12 other Indiana cities — and it can’t come fast enough.
Tuesday, Indiana Republicans ditched efforts to add civil rights protections for lesbian, gay and bisexual Hoosiers in this legislative session. Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R-Fort Wayne) said last week his colleagues would vote on expanding the state’s civil rights law, which he said was “of importance to the entire state, regardless of which way it goes.”
It apparently is as important to Senate Republicans as it is to Gov. Mike Pence, who signed Indiana’s so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which sparked economic boycotts, scuttled previously announced business expansions and led tourists to cancel Indiana travel plans. A “fixed” RFRA will remain in place for at least another year.
RFRA was passed by a legislative supermajority of Republicans in March. Its purpose, they said, was to prohibit laws that “substantially burden” a person, religious institution, business or association from following their religious beliefs.
Instead, it set off a firestorm of condemnation from civil rights advocates, business leaders and others who saw it as a way to deny services to the LGBT community.
Kokomo Councilman Tom Miklik, R-6th District, told us last week he believes a civil rights expansion for the city’s LGBT isn’t needed. “I have not seen [discrimination] raised to a level sufficient that it impairs or affects the public good in Kokomo, Indiana.”
Kokomo Pride president Darrell Blasius said last week now is the time for the city to act. Waiting for the state to protect LGBT Hoosiers from discrimination could produce negative results. “Why do we have to wait until it gets to that point?” he asked.
Indeed. Councilmembers must codify civil rights protections for Kokomo’s LGBT. The council must do the right thing and pressure state lawmakers to do the same.