Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights were the topic of a public forum Tuesday morning at Shepherd University. Speakers at the event said West Virginia has come far in accepting LGBT people but not far enough.
Dozens of community members, Shepherd faculty, students, and alumni attended the discussion Tuesday on LGBT rights.
The forum explored the struggle for equal rights and protection from discrimination in West Virginia and across the country. It specifically looked at challenges the LGBT community has faced since the June 2015 federal legalization of same-sex marriage.
Delegate Stephen Skinner, a Democrat from Jefferson County, is the only openly gay member of the state Legislature.
At the event, Skinner said in order for West Virginia to be a leader in LGBT rights the state needs to first acknowledge that there is an issue.
“People in West Virginia have to recognize that there is homophobia that leads to action that people are actually hurt because of the hate that gets promoted,” he said.
Skinner says passing a statewide non-discrimination law is one answer, but he says West Virginia has progressed significantly in the past ten years.
This story was updated March 2, 7:40 pm: House Bill 4012 died on a 7 to 27 vote by the West Virginia Senate. The bill, known as the Religious Freedom Protection Act, would have established a process for courts to follow when people or businesses claimed that government action was infringing upon their religious beliefs.
17-year old Davis Kimble, a young activist who had spoken out against the bill earlier this week, had this response to the Senate’s decision:“I think this serves as a victory for not only minorities across the state, but also for passionate community leaders who stood up and made their voices heard. It’s a shame we had to fight this fight, but it shows a willingness on the part of our state legislatures to hear the people’s voices and do what’s best for the state and its wonderful people.”
Original Post: The bill was renamed the West Virginia Religious Freedom Protection Act by the chamber’s Finance Committee on Friday night. For the past few weeks, several small businesses and even mayors have spoken out against the bill, but now, the academic community is joining the opposition. Three major West Virginia colleges and universities – and some high school students – have stood up to publicly announce that they are also against the bill.
House Bill 4012 establishes a legal standard for judges to follow when a person feels the government has infringed on their religious freedoms.
Opponents say the bill would encourage more discrimination against gays, lesbians, Muslims, and other groups in the state.
The Senate Finance Committee approved language that expressly says the intent of the law is not to allow for discrimination, but did not approve a separate amendment to protect non-discrimination ordinances passed by several cities across the state.
“When laws like this pass, it moves our society backwards in terms of social justice,” said Dr. Molly Clever, an assistant professor of sociology and social justice at West Virginia Wesleyan College. She and the rest of the Wesleyan Faculty Senate – a governing body made up of university staff – passed a resolution last Thursday saying they felt that HB 4012 violates the college’s principles of social justice and human dignity.
Credit Courtesy Davis Kimble
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An LGBT advocacy group at Morgantown High School, called Spectrum, marches in their school’s Homecoming parade
“The 1964 Civil Rights Act directly addressed this issue. It said you don’t get to deny who sits at the lunch counter. When you are a business open to the public, when you serve the public, you have a responsibility to serve everyone,” Clever said.
Wesleyan’s Faculty Senate passed the resolution after similar resolutions were passed at Marshall University and West Virginia University.
Clever says a number of her students approached her recently, saying they were concerned about HB 4012. A club at Morgantown high School, called Spectrum, is also speaking out against the bill. The club’s president, 17-year-old Davis Kimble, is straight. But his parents are lesbians, and his sister is a transgender female. He believes the bill will allow more discrimination of LGBT people, like his family.
“Members of the community are going to struggle, and those members do exist. They might not be as outspoken, but they exist. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that anyone would argue that this bill’s not being used to discriminate,” said Kimble, whose mom, Kelly Kimble, is the chair of the LGBT civil rights advocacy organization Fairness West Virginia, which is fiercely opposed to HB 4012.
But Davis Kimble says he’s advocating against this legislation not just because of his family, but also because he thinks laws like these are pushing young people like him to leave West Virginia.
“The entire younger generation wants to leave. I want to leave. I am leaving, and that’s not good for business, that’s not good for the state,” he said.
Although Kimble says he’s not staying in West Virginia, he wants to help fight for his friends and his family who are still in the state.
The Senate’s Judiciary Committee chairman disagrees with Kimble and his family, saying the new language in the bill does address their concerns of possible discrimination. The full Senate will consider further amendments to the bill Tuesday, March 1, and put the bill to a final vote Wednesday.
The Kanawha County school board has approved policy changes meant to protect prospective and current lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees from discrimination.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that the board approved the changes at a meeting Thursday. Among the changes was adding “ancestry and sexual orientation” to the equal opportunity section of the school system’s cultural diversity and human relations policy.
The change adds a definition of sexual orientation: “actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, or gender identity or expression of an individual, with or without regard to the individual’s assigned sex at birth.”
The revision also crosses out the phrase “any other status protected by federal, state or local law,” which was part of the list of classes protected from discrimination. There is no federal or state law banning discrimination against LGBT individuals.
West Virginia advocacy groups are reacting to a new federal ruling that further protects the LGBT community. A Thursday ruling by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has deemed discrimination against workers based on sexual orientation illegal.
Under current law, West Virginia does not protect LGBT persons from being fired or discriminated against at work, but the new ruling by the EEOC extends those protections to citizens across the country.
In regards to Thursday’s decision, a similar ruling was handed down in 2012, when the EEOC determined that transgender workers were protected from discrimination.
Jennifer Meinig, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, called the ruling groundbreaking but said protections are also needed on the state level. According to Buzzfeed, the commission ruled that gender identity-based discrimination is barred by the sex discrimination ban.
“This is a significant development because protections for gay and transgender people are almost nonexistent in federal law and in 28 states, including West Virginia,” Meinig said.
“Shockingly, there are no explicit protections civil rights protections for LGBT folks on the books in terms of employment.”
Meinig says the ACLU of West Virginia, along with LGBT advocacy group Fairness West Virginia plan to lobby for state legislation that ensures employment, housing and other public accommodation protections for the LGBT community.
Fairness West Virginia executive director Andrew Schneider echoed Meinig’s belief that there is still work to be done on the state level.
“You’re going to see us trying to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s human rights code. Simply not having it in there is, in a way, giving a green light to those who are prejudice, those who are biased and those who are homophobic to act out those prejudices in actions that should be unlawful,” Schneider said.
“That’s unlawful now under the EEOC ruling, but it should be unlawful under state code,” he added.
Schneider pointed to a 2013 poll by Public Policy Polling that showed 68 percent of West Virginians said discrimination in employment and housing based on sexual orientation or gender identity should not be allowed.
A bill known as EHNDA–the Employment and Housing Non-Discrimination Act–has been introduced in West Virginia in multiple legislative sessions over the past few years. That legislation has sought to provide employment and housing protections for the LGBT community. However, various versions of the bill have failed repeatedly.
Calls seeking comment from the Family Policy Council of West Virginia, a conservative policy group that has argued against LGBT protections in housing and employment, were not immediately returned.
