Last month the Abington Township Commission rejected a bill that sought to provide nondiscrimination protections for the LGBT community in a resounding 10-5 vote. Two local women, however, haven’t accepted defeat and are pressing their elected officials to right that wrong.
Following the Jan. 13 rejection of the bill, proposed by out commissioner Lori Schreiber, Abington residents Theresa Keenan-Flite and Dianna Pax, both straight allies, launched Abington Against Discrimination and Defamation, drawing support from 60 people at their most recent meeting.
Pax said she and Keenan-Flite were, like the majority of residents at last month’s vote, surprised and dismayed by the action taken by their commission.
“It was really emotional in many ways,” she said. “There were a lot of people telling personal stories about discrimination they’ve faced — not just LGBT people, but black people, Jewish people — so there was a real feeling of shame when they turned this down. There were a lot of tears and then this sense of, we need to get ourselves together and do something to stand against this.”
Keenan-Flite said the transition from sadness to anger was a quick one.
“When they voted against it, there weren’t many dry eyes in the room. We basically mourned for a few moments and, by the time we got to the back of the room, we were like, we need to do something,” she said. “We didn’t know what ‘do something’ really meant, but we knew we weren’t going to stand for this. The citizens of Abington did not want this, and that was very clear from the room full of people who were there supporting the ordinance.”
Schreiber said she received just one phone call from a man who had reservations about the measure and two e-mails from constituents against the bill, but all other feedback was positive.
Following the vote, Keenan-Flite and Pax took down the names of residents in attendance and launched a website and Facebook page. Abington ADD has encouraged its members and supporters to contact their legislators and urge them to pursue the issue.
During the Feb. 2 public-affairs meeting of the commission, president Carol DiJoseph introduced a new version of the nondiscrimination measure, although in a different form.
The new version does not include the proposed human relations commission, a volunteer panel that would have investigated complaints of discrimination. DiJoseph’s measure would allow for complaints to be filed with the Township Manager and the Township Police Department.
Pax noted, however, that an external human-relations commission is a less-intimidating body than the police department.
“People who would be filing a complaint have been victimized and many will likely be afraid of approaching law enforcement,” she said, noting that the township police chief presented a PowerPoint at last month’s meeting detailing the policies in place and recommending the measure not be adopted, an action she surmised may have swayed some of the lawmakers to vote against it.
Other changes are also in place, such as the inclusion of organizations that are “segregated by gender” under the exemptions.
“I couldn’t believe they even want to use the word ‘segregated’ in this ordinance,” Keenan-Flite said. “The original ordinance would have protected everyone and given a neutral, well-tested body to handle complaints, but it’s been completely watered down now. There are so many loopholes.”
Schreiber said the new bill is too relaxed to be effective.
“There’s some real ambiguous language,” she said. “The way it’s written, there are no timeframes, such as these certain things have to happen in this many days, so there’s no real structure to it. There’s no mention of how people would be trained to take complaints, who’d be chosen to be in charge of that — it refers to volunteers and staff, but that could be just about anyone. It doesn’t feel to me as if it’s really safeguarding people’s rights.”
Schreiber said the commissioners had mentioned forming a committee to evaluate the legislation, but she hasn’t heard anything on that front.
The vote went nearly along party lines with all Republicans and one Democrat voting against the bill.
Schreiber said some legislators had credible concerns about the religious exemption, which she said has since been rewritten to communicate that the law does not apply to religious organizations, but she’s concerned about the motivations behind some of the dissenting votes.
“I think some people did have legitimate concerns with the language of it, but I also think there may be some other people who are going to continue to find problems with it,” she said. “Even the people who voted against it keep saying that, of course they’re against discrimination, but unless they’re really willing to bring everybody to the table and make a really strong ordinance that has been reviewed by experts in the field, lawyers, the Human Relations Commission, the Anti-Defamation League, it’s hard for me to believe that. It’s one thing to pay lip service and say you’re against discrimination but unless you really think about what many, many experts say is the best way to do this, then there doesn’t seem to be a clear explanation of why they won’t go with what’s been shown to work.”
Keenan-Flite and Pax encouraged supporters to write letters to the editor about the issue in regional newspapers and contact the legislators to encourage them to keep working to create the strongest LGBT ordinance possible.
“We need to make sure they understand why it’s so important to get these local commissions as many places as we can,” Keenan-Flite said. “The LGBT community isn’t covered by our state law, so as many local municipalities that we can get offering these laws and these commissions, the better.”
For more information on Abington ADD, visit www.pureportals.com/abingtonagainstdiscrimination, search for the organization on Facebook or e-mail [email protected].