Fayetteville sides spent twice as much in ’15 bias-ordinance vote

FAYETTEVILLE — The opposing sides in the latest round of the city’s years-long debate over gay and transgender people’s civil rights raised and spent more than twice as much money as a similar campaign almost a year ago, finance reports from the two ballot-question committees show.

For Fayetteville, a group whose push to expand civil-rights protections prevailed in the Sept. 8 election, outspent the opposing Protect Fayetteville committee by roughly $12,500. For Fayetteville raised and spent about $74,000, according to reports turned in last month to the Arkansas Ethics Commission. The two sides in the December 2014 vote on a similar measure spent about $65,500 combined.

The latest campaign centered on the question of whether businesses and landlords should be penalized if they fire, evict, turn away or otherwise discriminate against employees and customers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Arkansas’ civil-rights law doesn’t explicitly protect homosexual, bisexual and transgender people.

About 53 percent of voters, or 7,698 people, cast ballots in favor of adding the protections, reversing the December failure of a separate ordinance with similar aims. A lawsuit filed by Protect Fayetteville, claiming that the ordinance violates state law and is invalid, is pending in Washington County District Court.

Money from donors was flowing to both groups by June and continued at least through September, according to the reports. State law requires the groups to give totals for all money and support given and spent, and to identify donors who give at least $50 and expenses of at least $100. Nonmonetary or in-kind contributions, such as supplies or services, are also reported, but they’re not counted in the totals raised or spent.

About 40 individuals, businesses and groups were identified as giving an average of about $1,200 in money or nonmonetary support to Protect Fayetteville. For Fayetteville’s reports listed five times as many individuals and groups, with the average gift worth about half as much as Protect Fayetteville’s.

The contributors included several civic leaders. Among them were three Fayetteville aldermen — Adella Gray, Mark Kinion and Alan Long. They all gave at least $50 in cash or other support to For Fayetteville, with Kinion pitching in $1,000. State Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, gave $75.

On the Protect Fayetteville side, Fayetteville Alderman John La Tour gave $500; and Jim Lindsey, CEO of the Lindsey Management real estate and rental company, gave $100.

For Fayetteville’s contributors also included Lindsley Smith, a former spokesman for the city and a former state representative, who gave $200. She introduced in 2005 an unsuccessful bill to add protections for gay and transgender people statewide.

Both groups reported contributions from religious institutions and their personnel, but Protect Fayetteville received much more money from such sources than For Fayetteville did.

Baldwin Christian Church on East Huntsville Road gave $10,000 to Protect Fayetteville. The group received a total of $12,400 from religious sources.

For Fayetteville received $3,350 from religious sources, mostly from individual clergy members, including a reverend in Miami who gave $100.

Both groups also collected money from people and groups outside of Fayetteville. Fewer than a third of For Fayetteville’s contributors listed addresses outside the city, but the outside groups contributed roughly three-fourths of the donations.

About one-third of Protect Fayetteville’s money came from people who listed outside addresses, and they made up about one-sixth of the donations. A handful of contributors for each group listed no addresses.

Bryan Bair, owner of Maverx Medical in Springdale, gave more than $36,000, mostly in the form of salaries, for For Fayetteville’s workers. That support isn’t included in For Fayetteville’s totals spent or raised.

Many of For Fayetteville’s outside contributors lived in Eureka Springs, Little Rock or Springfield, Mo. — cities that also have debated or passed similar civil-rights laws in the past year or two.

Protect Fayetteville’s largest contributor was the Aledo, Texas-based group WallBuilders. Its website describes it as a conservative advocacy group that pushes for education emphasizing traditional biblical values and the role of Christianity in United States history. The group gave $15,000, surpassing its $6,000 contribution during the 2014 campaign.

“WallBuilders is strongly committed to preserving the four-century-old American protection for the rights of religious conscience,” the group said in an emailed statement. “Over recent years, sexual identity NDOs [non-discrimination ordinances] have been the weapon for most of the attacks against people of traditional religious faith. We stand firmly with the time-honored rights of religious conscience that have come under direct assault through these ordinances.”