Susquehanna Township joined Pennsylvania’s 25 other municipalities last week to ban LGBT discrimination.
The township, in Dauphin County in Central Pennsylvania, approved an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance Dec. 8 in a 7-1 vote, becoming the first municipality in mid-Pennsylvania to approve such a measure in nine years.
“The more ordinances that are passed throughout the state, especially in places like Central and Western Pennsylvania, the more attention will be paid to the fact that this is an issue with statewide significance,” said Ted Martin, executive director of Equality Pennsylvania.
Just in the past year, eight municipalities have adopted LGBT-inclusive ordinances, all of which were in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Diane Bowman, president of the Susquehanna Township board of commissioners, said the township’s action should signal to the state legislature — which has failed to advance a statewide LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance — that the issue is one that affects communities across Pennsylvania.
“This is not just in cities, but municipalities and townships that are in the suburbs that are looking at the same issues and sharing an understanding of the lack of rights the LGBT community has,” Bowman said. “There are many people who don’t live in cities or in the Philadelphia area who are identifying with this, and I think that’s very significant.”
The issue was first raised last year by resident Steve Dorko and taken up by the commission this past summer.
There were two critics who opposed the bill at last week’s commissioners’ meeting but many LGBTs and allies who spoke in favor.
A lot of the emails Bowman received in opposition were organized by the American Family Association and largely came from non-township residents, she said, and she also received a number of favorable emails that included personal stories of discrimination suffered by LGBT community members.
The approved measure bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, employment and public accommodations and also sets up a nine-member volunteer commission to handle discrimination complaints.
Susquehanna Township, population 24,000, is a suburb of Harrisburg.
Bowman said she’s hopeful that surrounding municipalities will follow Susquehanna’s lead and take up similar efforts.
“As Equality PA has said to us, the powers that be who didn’t move on [the statewide nondiscrimination bill] said that they should get local municipalities to pass these on their own and that if there’s enough of them, that will help to show the state that this is the right thing to do,” she said. “So we hope that this continues to snowball and becomes larger and larger.”
Since last week’s passage, Martin said his agency has received two calls from individuals interested in advancing similar measures in other locales.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].