Bipartisan business support for the Pennsylvania Fairness Act, which has been stalled in committee since September, was the talk of the night May 4 in the law offices of Cozen O’Connor, high above the ground in One Liberty Place.
“I am more hopeful now than I have ever been that we are going to have LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination at a statewide level,” said State Rep. Brian Sims, who represents Center City and is the first elected openly gay state lawmaker.
He said former proposals to add LGBT protections from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act never made it to the floor for a vote.
“This year, we started with the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference. We started with the chambers of commerce across the state,” Sims said. “We said, ‘What needs to be palatable in this bill in order for you to pass it?’ We made a lot of changes.”
Pennsylvania Competes, a bipartisan nonprofit working to pass the Fairness Act, hosted about 35 people at the law firm to raise funds to support its work.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney hit home the point that Democrats and Republicans support the Fairness Act.
“It’s not partisan,” he said. “Our regional Republicans are awesome people … All these folks really have a sense of what we need to do to help our city and state move forward.”
Kenney gave a shout-out to state Rep. Bill Adolph, who represents part of Delaware County, and State Rep. John Taylor, who represents the Port Richmond area. He went on to say that he considers Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower as his favorite president because of the man’s expansion of highway systems and Medicaid and desegregation of schools.
Kenney added both parties should be on guard to fight against the fear- and hate-mongering perpetuated by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
“This is a sensible sea of love and safe harbor for everyone in Philadelphia,” Kenney said. “But when you can tell somebody that you won’t serve them a meal because you think they’re gay, or you won’t rent them a hotel room because you think they’re gay … Where are we going as a country?”
He referenced the 2014 incident in which several young adults from Bucks County assaulted two gay men in Center City.
“That just makes my blood boil,” Kenney said. “There’s no place for that in this city. There’s no place for that in this country.”
He said passing the Fairness Act would be a strong victory, on which to push for hate-crimes laws that would include crimes motivated by anti-LGBT bias, and anti-bullying laws that would include protections for LGBT students.
“We want to see Philadelphia succeed,” said Philip L. Rinaldi, founder and CEO of Philadelphia Energy Solutions and one of the attendees at the Pennsylvania Competes event. “We’re big believers in the rising tide raising all boats. We’re trying to make the tide rise.”
Rinaldi pointed out the window of the Cozen O’Connor office to his company’s smokestacks that were visible to the south.
“We’ve saved a lot of jobs and added a lot more jobs,” he said. “In business, you want to hire the best people … We support causes all across the board when we think it’s the right thing for the economy, for Philadelphia and for Pennsylvania.”
Kimya Johnson, director of diversity and inclusion at Cozen O’Connor, said the law firm has worked for a while with Pennsylvania Competes.
“Equality in the LGBT community has not been adequately addressed by the state,” said Johnson, who has a background in labor and employment law.
She added that Cozen has a nondiscrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity. Johnson said, in the past, businesses had the reputation of being behind the curve in diversity.
In the case of protecting LGBT employees, Johnson said, “I do feel like businesses are leading the charge. It just makes good business sense.”