Senate candidate Curtis gives pep talk at NDO rally

Barely 48 hours after being chosen as the new Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat from Montana, Amanda Curtis stopped in Billings briefly to cheer on supporters of a nondiscrimination ordinance.

Curtis, a Billings native and Butte schoolteacher serving her first term in the Montana House, spoke Monday evening on the steps of the First Congregational United Church of Christ.

One week earlier, in the City Hall just across Third Avenue North from the church, the City Council voted 6-5 not to adopt an NDO, with Mayor Tom Hanel casting the deciding vote. The NDO would have banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identification or expression.

The rally, attended by perhaps 150 people, was a sign that supporters of the ordinance do not consider the vote the end of the matter by any means.

Curtis, on her way to Crow Agency for the close of Crow Fair later Monday evening, introduced herself as a Billings native and a graduate of Skyview High School, and then shouted through a bullhorn:

“I know that there’s not a single person on this planet who deserves to be discriminated against when they go to look for a job or a place to live.”

And with that she was done, except for leading the crowd through another recitation of the chant of the night:

“What do we want?”

“Equality!”

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

Curtis was chosen at a Democratic convention in Helena on Saturday to replace Sen. John Walsh as the party’s Senate candidate. Walsh dropped out of the race after it was reported that he plagiarized parts of an important paper at the Army War College.

Before Curtis spoke, Patrick Olp read a letter from Gov. Steve Bullock, who thanked supporters for raising “awareness about this important issue to your community.”

“You’ve brought together community members from all walks of life — faith leaders, business leaders, young people, parents, grandparents, Democrats, Republicans, gay, straight, and transgender persons — to help get this done, and I know you’re only getting started,” Bullock said.

There were several other speakers, too, chosen to counter some of the familiar stances taken by opponents during the protracted City Council consideration of the NDO.

Among them was the Rev. Rob Kirby, the campus minister at Montana State University Billings, who decried the “aggression thinly veiled as religious freedom” seen at public hearings on the NDO, and who told the crowd that “now is not the time to shrink away in silent retreat.”

As a counterpoint to the many businesspeople who defended what they see as their right to deny services to people whose lifestyles they regard as objectionable, Eran Thompson, the head of Not In Our Town, introduced businessman Jamey Eisenbarth.

Eisenbarth said he owned two car dealerships, Hardin Chevrolet and Auto West in Billings, where he has made a point of insisting on nondiscriminatory policies. He also said that he and his partner, Don Christensen, recently bought out another Billings business, Oz Fitness, and reopened it as Yellowstone Fitness.

He said he and Christensen plan to get married this February, and he thanked supporters of the NDO for giving him the courage to speak openly about himself in a public forum.

Thompson closed the rally by talking about growing up as an African-American in Billings, then recited a portion of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech — after tutoring his audience on the proper call-and-response that punctuates that part of the speech, the “How long?” answered by “Not long!”

Supporters of the NDO were also passing out small “I am ready” placards, asking people to sign them and give their name, address and contact information. They will be gathered and delivered en masse to the City Council.

The slogan is a reference to Mayor Hanel’s remarks last week, as he attempted to explain why he was voting “no” on the NDO. He ended his talk by saying “I do not think Billings is ready at this time” for such an ordinance.

Editor’s note: As the rally was taking place, the Billings City Council was gathering across the street for a work session, one of its regularly scheduled informal meetings.

Councilman Brent Cromley reportedly was going to make a council initiative at the meeting, seeking to bring the NDO back for consideration.

We don’t know what the outcome of the effort was, and we urge our readers to look to the Billings Gazette for an answer. Your Last Best News correspondent had already put in a very long day, and he was damned if he was going to sit through another City Council meeting, of any duration, to find out what happened.

Though we are sometimes critical of the Gazette, it is the newspaper of record in this part of the world, and if you think you can begin to understand what’s going on in our community without consulting the Gazette, you are wrong — in our opinion, keeping in mind the need to be tolerant of divergent points of view.

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