North Dakota Considers Civil Rights for Gays
North Dakota Law Would Give Civil Rights Protection to Gays
© Jon Pike
Feb 7, 2009
Red-state North Dakota is considering a law to add protections for sexual orientation. North Dakota law already forbids discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, age, national origin disability, public assistance status and marital status. The bill’s author is Fargo Senator Tom Fiebiger. The bill got a hearing before the state senate’s judiciary committee this last week.
Hearing Brings Out Proponents and Opponents
The Senate committee heard from backers and detractors of the bill:
- Janne Myrdal, state director for Concerned Women of America, called the bill "a giant step toward the adoption of policies that discriminate against people with traditional views of morality."This law would not protect rights, but would rather grant special privileges based strictly on someone's sexual behavior. "Further, those privileges would have a significant impact on the constitutional rights of North Dakotans who may have a moral objection to certain sexual behaviors."
- Christopher Dodson, director of the North Dakota Catholic Conference said the bill "provides no protection for churches, private schools and youth organizations, such as scouting organizations, from being forced to violate their sincerely held beliefs.”
- Wade Schemmel, a conference minister for the Northern Plains Conference of the United Church of Christ said, “It is time that the North Dakota laws matched our values,"
- Amy Nelson, director of Fair Housing of the Dakotas said, "I tell housing providers, you have a right to have your personal views, but you do not have the right to bring those views into your business world and use them to make decisions which have no impact upon your business, and discriminate
States that Ban Sexual Orientation Discrimination
Among the states that that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation are:
- Wisconsin
- Connecticut
- New Jersey
- Vermont
- California
- Minnesota
- Rhode Island
- New Hampshire
- Nevada
- Maryland
- Montana
- Massachusetts
- Hawaii
The committee will decide whether or not to recommend the bill. Following that, the bill would appear before the whole senate. North Dakota passed its statewide civil rights laws in the 1980s, and did not include sexual orientation in those laws. Laws against consensual same-sex relationships existed in North Dakota from its statehood in 1862. These laws were repealed in 1975. While the state has no openly-gay elected public officials, Fargo Mayor, Jon Lindgren was an active supporter of gay rights in the 1980s. The North Dakota Human Rights coalition launched a state-wide drive to support this bill at the beginning of the year.
The LGBT community in North Dakota may be looking to the bill for a significant legislative victory. North Dakota was one of 11 states that backed a same-sex marriage ban in North Dakota.
