Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
Hope Errico Wisneski, with the Human Rights Campaign, speaks Tuesday night at a gathering of people who support passage of a nondiscrimination ordinance in Billings.
Hope Errico Wisneski told supporters of a nondiscrimination ordinance in Billings on Tuesday that they are moving forward swiftly, however slow the process might seem.
Things truly move slowly in Washington, D.C., she said, which is why the Human Rights Campaign is working for change in states and individual communities.
“There is an end and there is a happy ever after,” she said.
Wisneski is the regional field director for the HRC, which works for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights.
She and Liz Welch, the LGBT coordinator for the Montana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, spoke Tuesday evening at an event hosted by Suzie Eades and Karen Stainton and attended by about 25 people.
Eades and Stainton, who are married, have been working to persuade the City Council to pass an NDO, which would prohibit discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations against people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identification or expression.
Wisneski reminded people at the event that 18 states, the District of Columbia and more than 200 cities have already passed laws similar to the NDO being considered in Billings.
Supporters of the NDO are working to line up support from local businesses, thinking that might be a key to rounding up enough votes on the council. About 100 businesses have signed a statement of support, Welch said, and her goal is to equal or outpace Bozeman, which had the support of 160 businesses, and which has already passed an NDO.
“We know that equality is good for business,” Wisneski said. Many large corporations wouldn’t consider opening offices in communities that don’t welcome all their employees, she said, and small businesses need to know that this is an important issue for millennials and for people now entering the workforce.
In an interview before she spoke, Wisneski said she wasn’t worried that opponents might present her involvement as evidence that the NDO is being promoted by “outsiders.”
She said the City Council in particular wants to hear from people who have experience with NDOs in other cities and states, so they can hear what actually happened, after hearing so much about what might happen.
What she can tell council members, she said, is that cities with NDOs do not see a rash of lawsuits filed on behalf of protected parties, and “we don’t see problems with bathrooms.”
The question of bathrooms and locker rooms has loomed large at recent public hearings, with opponents raising concerns about such places being opened to transgender people.
“There are over 200 cities that have implemented these without a whole lot of trouble,” Wisneski said.
Wisneski said she testified Monday night during the general comment section following the regular City Council meeting. She spoke for the allotted time and then answered questions from council members for 10 minutes, she said.
“I think coming in as an outsider was really helpful,” she said.
Welch said the ACLU has also been accused of being an outsider, “the big guy pulling all the strings.” But she lives in Billings, Welch said, and the NDO is being worked on by a steering committee made up of local people. Also, she said, the committee is working with 51 Billings clergy members on the issue.
Among those at the gathering Tuesday were two council members, Ken Crouch and Jani McCall.
McCall said the council is scheduled to discuss changes to the draft NDO when it meets for a work session on Monday. She said she is going to suggest that the council put this on the agenda for a vote at the earliest possible council meeting.
Because of requirements regarding notice of public hearings, that would mean scheduling a vote for the Aug. 11 meeting, she said. What she expects to happen, though, is that someone else on the council will make a substitute motion to put the issue up for a public vote.
It would be too late to put the issue on the November ballot, McCall said, meaning it would not be voted on until next spring at the earliest.
“It would be awful to let this languish clear to next spring,” she said.
McCall hopes the five staunch supporters of the NDO on the council — she and Crouch, Brent Cromley, Becky Bird and Al Swanson — will be able to round up one more vote among the opponents or those who have leaned both ways on various votes.
Details: Businesses that back the NDO can sign a statement of support by going here.
