Pennsylvania won its 27th LGBT ordinance last week with Cheltenham Township’s successful adoption of a measure to ban discrimination against LGBTs.
The board of commissioners of the Montgomery County locale voted 6-1 Feb. 15 in favor of the proposed Human Relations Ordinance, which prevents discrimination in housing, employment, commercial property transactions and public accommodations based on a number of characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender identity.
It also creates a volunteer human-relations commission to investigate and adjudicate discrimination complaints.
The only dissenting vote was from Republican Commissioner Charles McKeown, who said his Catholic religion prevented him from supporting the ordinance.
Dr. David Flaks, a steering committee member of Cheltenham Area Residents for Equality, said the vote marked a “great day” for the township, which has a population of more than 36,000.
“The commissioners have made it very clear that Cheltenham Township will protect its LGBT residents even while our state continues to condone second-class citizenship,” Flaks said.
A bill to ban LGBT discrimination statewide has been stalled in the state legislature for a number of years, and a movement to pass similar local-level ordinances has picked up considerable speed in the last two years.
“The majority of Pennsylvanians, to the tune of 70 percent, support laws to protect people from discrimination,” said Adrian Shanker, board president of Equality Pennsylvania, which worked with CARE to press for the Cheltenham ordinance. “This isn’t controversial and this isn’t partisan. This is good, common-sense policy that will serve Cheltenham well.”
Art Haywood, president of the Chelten-ham board of commissioners, said the residents of Cheltenham saw the value in the measure.
“We had a very favorable response from the residents throughout the process,” Haywood said. “There were probably two or three people who ever expressed any opposition, and we had a large number of public meetings.”
A number of community organizations got behind the bill, such as Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, Cheltenham Democrats, the local United Church of Christ and local chapters of Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays, League of Women Voters and the NAACP.
While each municipal ordinance that is passed can lead to more local-level change, Haywood said he hopes the state will eventually follow suit.
“I hope that other municipalities do follow us, but I’d especially like to see the state do so,” he said. “One of the things we found when doing our own ordinance was that there were a lot of dissimilarities in the local ordinances, so it would be a lot better if we could have one uniform law for the entire state.”
Until that happens, however, Haywood said he’s pleased that Cheltenham took such a decisive stand.
“This ordinance confirms who we are here in Cheltenham, and that’s good that we’ve been able to do that.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].