Arizona owes gays full protection of the law

Arizona needs to update its anti-discrimination laws and make it clear that our state does not consider LGBTQ residents to be second class.

The Republican who wants the No. 2 job in Arizona thinks “compassion” is enough to protect LGBTQ employees.

Arizona doesn’t need a law to protect them from employment discrimination, Steve Gaynor says.

He spent a fortune of his own money to defeat Michele Reagan in the GOP primary and become the Republican candidate for secretary of state.

He’s got ideas about human rights that wouldn’t bring two cents in the marketplace of modern thought.

“I don’t support legislation to make LGBTQ a protected class,” Gaynor says. Why?

“It’s not because I don’t think they deserve protection,” he says.

Then why?

“Protecting classes of people can create problems,” he told The Arizona Republic’s Editorial Board on Monday. It’s a “two-edged sword,” he said. Oh. Then he must have examples of problems caused by protecting classes of people?

There was long silence. Then he said he’d “have to think about it.”

Of course, he says, this isn’t about being anti-LGBTQ. Of course not.

Gaynor says he doesn’t think people should be discriminated against because of sexual orientation. Heavens no.

He also says protecting people from discrimination on the basis of race “is appropriate.”

How generous of the man who runs his printing business in California, while seeking an elected office in Arizona that would put him next in line to succeed the governor.

Gaynor reportedly used about $1 million of his own fortune to defeat Reagan in the primary.

He ran to her right.

Now he hedges his earlier comments that ballots should not be printed in Spanish, saying he’d “comply” with federal law that calls for ballots in other languages.

He also says it was a “rational business decision” — not an admission of guilt — to settle a class-action lawsuit against his California business that alleged he underpaid workers.

What’s more, he’s had “quite a few” employees who were LGBTQ — and he opposes discrimination based on sexual orientation.

But codifying that in law? Problematic.

In Gaynor’s world view, the people who would be protected understand that.

Gaynor says he’s had “discussions” with people who are gay, lesbian and transgender, and “they are not of one mind about whether there should be a law against workplace discrimination.”

I’m just guessing here, but I’d say Gaynor’s observation is not based on an extensive survey of LBGTQ people about whether it should be legal to fire them because of their sexual orientation or identity.

Gaynor’s candidacy has been denounced by the Arizona Human Rights Campaign as “anti-LGBTQ” and “shameful, dangerous and inconsistent with our state’s shared values.”

Arizona law prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability or national origin. Not sexual orientation.

Phoenix and Tucson prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression and marital status.

Democrats have tried for years to extend workplace protections to LGBTQ residents under state law.

Katie Hobbs, Gaynor’s Democratic opponent in the secretary of state race, is a longtime legislator who backed measures to expand Arizona’s anti-discrimination laws. These efforts went nowhere in the GOP-controlled Arizona Legislature.

So Gaynor is really not expressing a view that is out of the GOP mainstream.

But it’s shocking to hear Gaynor insist that “compassion” is better than a law to combat workplace discrimination against LGBTQ people. It sounds so strikingly regressive.

Yet Republicans could put Gaynor in high state office simply because he has an R by his name.

This shows the danger of putting political loyalty ahead of common decency.

It also shows why Arizona needs to update its anti-discrimination laws and make it clear that our state does not consider LGBTQ residents to be second class.