Last OKC commission killed over LGBT issues
An Oklahoma City human rights commission helped guide the city on matters of civil rights and discrimination between 1963 and 1996 when it was killed by a divided Oklahoma City Council.
It was a debate covered for weeks by Oklahoman writer Jack Money.
Those who voted to kill it were Jerry Foshee, who represented Ward 5; Guy Liebmann, who represented Ward 8; Jack Cornett, who represented Ward 3; and Frosty Peak, who represented Ward 1.
The 5-3 vote, with then-Mayor Ron Norick absent, occurred as the commission sought to extend protection to the city's LGBT residents.
The city council members voting to abolish the commission called their decision “morally right,” saying their chief complaint was the panel had turned into a vehicle for the advancement of legal protections for homosexuals.
Council members Mark Schwartz, Ann Simank and Willa Johnson opposed doing away with the commission, saying it had served the city well by mediating discrimination-related disputes.
The three said the commission's primary responsibility was educational activities regarding discrimination, before it was rendered inactive in recent months by the council's refusals to fund or staff it.
Norick didn't vote, but he previously had indicated he opposed eliminating the panel.
The earliest commission was appointed in 1963 and various incarnations of the group came and went based on funding and backing of the city council. The last commission was created in 1988 after hate crimes rocked Oklahoma City that included a cross burned on the lawn of a church in northeast Oklahoma City and antiSemitic slogans painted on area Jewish temples.
Commission opponents on the council argued it had mediated only a few dozen cases.
Simank said that "of the 33 complaints that the commission heard and mediated, (between 1988 and 1992) race employment, race employment, race-age employment, disability employment, race employment, race employment — only five involved discrimination based on sexual orientation."
Opposition largely consisted of religious groups. Nancy Jo Kerr, then a representative of Concerned Women for America, said she believed homosexuals were using the panel to pursue special advantages for their behavior.
"The protection for this behavior is just a blatant license for promiscuous sex," she said at the time. "That is not a human right — it is an irresponsible wrong."
Several attempts to revive the commission were made after it was disbanded, including after a video was aired showing two Oklahoma City police officers striking black resident Donald Pete at least 27 times with tactical batons as they confronted him on a prostitution and drug complaint.
The officers were cleared of wrongdoing and then-Mayor Mick Cornett dismissed the need for a human rights commission.
"It seems to me if we already have a commission with the state, then a lot of those needs are being met," Cornett said. "The Donald Pete incident a couple years ago illustrated we acted quickly and adequately. I don't think we necessarily need another level of government, and I don't think there is a sentiment on the council to vote on it."
Kathy Carroll, a representative of the Oklahoma City chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, warned in 1996 dismantling the commission would have long- term consequences.
"To eliminate the institution that monitors and mediates hate crimes is the wrong message to send to the rest of the country," she said. "It tells the ignorant, prejudiced and mean-spirited that this is a city that no longer cares enough to protect all of its citizens. We will be saying to the people of hate that we are an open town."