Craig Lancaster
The arc of social justice bends slowly but surely toward inclusion. In Billings, in the case of a prospective non-discrimination ordinance, the “slowly” part is evident for all to see. The “surely”? I don’t know that anyone who attended the Monday meeting of the City Council or spoke in favor of an ordinance has much confidence in that today.
To recap what the Gazette did not, here’s what happened: Councilman Shaun Brown brought forth an initiative to direct the city staff to stop working on a non-discrimination ordinance proposal. This initiative would be voted on at the next council meeting and, if adopted, would have tabled the ordinance indefinitely. Brown’s initiative failed on a 5-5 vote.
In a strange bit of logic, Brown conflated the non-discrimination ordinance with the public-safety mill levy effort, suggesting that continued work on one would somehow jeopardize the other. I’d like to think Billings voters deserve more credit than that. I’d also like to think we can recognize craven political expediency when we see it.
The maddening part of all of this is that Brown (and Angela Cimmino, Denis Pitman, Rich McFadden and Mike Yakawich, all of whom voted with him) had ample evidence of discrimination right there in chambers. Allies and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, all supporters of a non-discrimination ordinance, spoke forcefully and emotionally about ways in which people have been denied jobs, housing and access to services in the marketplace. They spoke of the challenges of everyday life, of the sort of bullying and taunting that would never be directed at the likes of Rich McFadden, who had the audacity to suggest that if we’ve survived since the pioneer days without protecting all of our citizens equally, we can survive a while longer.
Brown and others seized on the idea that a non-discrimination ordinance would do nothing to change opinions and would have no teeth to stop cruel remarks. It was, yet again, a case of looking directly at the problem and misapplying the solution. LGBT people get that attitudes aren’t changed by decree.
What can, and must, be addressed is equality in the eyes of the law. The anecdotes reveal the presence of and the potential for discrimination. The remedy lies in equal access and equal protection on a narrow set of standards: jobs, housing and services in the marketplace. Four cities in Montana are already there, and they’ve included reasonable exemptions for religious-based entities. The Rev. Paul Ostrander and the 25 or so people who stood with him against a non-discrimination should have nothing to fear from its passage. Alas, noise and fear seem to be the vantage points from which the battle against the ordinance is being fought.
I come at this thing from my own perspective, as a straight ally of the LGBT community who sees this as nothing less than an issue of human rights. Councilwoman Becky Bird, a supporter of the ordinance, asked me Monday night how opposition made me feel on behalf of “my community.”
My community is Billings. Every neighborhood, every enclave, every street, every school, every business that hangs out a shingle. That’s the City Council’s community, too. And it’s way past time for the people we’ve elected to step up and do right by every last one of us.
Craig Lancaster is a novelist who lives in Billings.
