Op-ed: Mayor should sign legal, constitutional anti-discrimination ordinance
Editor’s note: This is an open letter from local attorneys and law professors on the legality of Macon-Bibb County’s comprehensive civil rights ordinance.
During Macon-Bibb County Commission hearings on the Comprehensive Civil Rights Ordinance last week, those who spoke in opposition claimed the ordinance was “illegal” or would infringe on individual constitutional rights. We write to clarify that the ordinance, in fact, is neither illegal nor unconstitutional. This is apparent from the hundreds of anti-discrimination laws throughout the United States, which have never been challenged as “illegal.” Many cities and counties in Georgia and other states prohibit discrimination in employment, services, housing, and other areas, including many that cover sexual orientation and gender-identity based discrimination. (In Georgia, the list includes Atlanta, Brookhaven, Chamblee, Clarkston, Decatur, Doraville, Dunwoody, East Point, Hapeville, Savannah, Statesboro, Tybee Island, and Valdosta.) Many states—including traditionally conservative states such as Utah and Iowa— also have such anti-discrimination laws.
This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers such discrimination in employment. As Justice Gorsuch wrote in that 6-3 opinion, “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” U.S. Circuit Courts, including the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, also have stuck down gender-identity based discrimination under both the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX. None of these cases questioned the validity of laws prohibiting discrimination in employment, schools, or services based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The mistaken impression that anti-discrimination laws covering sexual orientation and gender identity are somehow “illegal” comes from the extensive hype surrounding Masterpiece Cakeshop, the case in which a Colorado anti-discrimination law was challenged by a baker, who objected to making a specialized wedding cake for a gay couple. Yet the Court did not overturn Colorado’s law in that case. Rather, it held that Colorado commissioners had demonstrated anti-religious bias in the baker’s specific case, including rhetoric condemning religion as the justification “for all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery … [or] the holocaust.”
While condemning the specific treatment of that baker, the Supreme Court confirmed that “Colorado law can protect gay persons, just as it can protect other classes of individuals, in acquiring whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public,” explaining that “while … religious and philosophical objections are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law.” The problem in the baker’s case was the commission’s failure to exhibit religious neutrality.
The civil rights ordinance on the Mayor’s desk is just that – neutral and generally applicable. There is no constitutional doubt about the general validity of laws prohibiting discrimination in employment or services, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Comprehensive Civil Rights Ordinance will protect citizens of Macon-Bibb and allow all taxpayers, regardless of race, religion, color, sex, disability, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity, or military status, equal access to the goods and services that our principled community offers.
The citizens of Macon-Bibb deserve to be afforded this opportunity. The ordinance is legal, and we very much hope that Mayor Reichert will respect the majority vote of the Commissioners and sign the ordinance into law.
Signed:
Sarah Gerwig-Moore, Jonathan Simpson, Scott Titshaw, Emily R. Wright, Charles E. Cox, Jr. , Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne, Kevin Bradley, David Ritchie, Billie Jo Kaufman, Pamela A. Wilkins, Cathren Page, Lance Simon, Cathy Cox, Timothy W. Floyd, Daisy Hurst Floyd, David T. Dorer, Jacqueline Hightower, Tim Saviello, Rachel Chmiel, Tina Hunt, Monica Roudil, Mark F. Dehler, Samuel F. Hart, Jr., Ana G. C. Wright, Tomieka R. Daniel, Richard W. Creswell, Amy Dever, Cheferre Young, Kenneth E. Barton, Lindsay E. Simmons, Ashley Cameron-Bivins, Franklin J. Hogue, Nancy Terrill, Gary J. Simson, Ashley Deadwyler-Heuman, Nyonnohweah Seekie and Trineice Hill.