SB 11 promises LGBTQ Ohioans the decency they deserve
Two Saturdays ago, I stepped up to the counter at my Huntington branch near Morse and Hamilton roads, slid a check and my ID over to the teller and began the type of superficial conversation we all have every day at bank windows, grocery checkouts, backyard fences, restaurant tables and office watercoolers.
“It’s such a beautiful day! I hope you get to enjoy it.”
“I do too! Do you have fun weekend plans?”
“I just dropped my partner off at the airport, so I’m going to be lazy today.”
“Oh! Where’s she headed?”
It’s a fork in the social road LGBTQ people face often. We do quick mental calculations about who we’re interacting with, where the conversation is taking place,
how deep we want to get into our personal business and what the consequences might be of coming out to a complete stranger before deciding which way to go.
I’m in Columbus, which has laws against ANTILGBTQ discrimination, but we’re near Gahanna and New Albany, which do not. Ohio has an increasingly conservative reputation, but a March poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that two-thirds of voters in our state think people shouldn’t be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
My teller is a young woman. The poll found eight in 10 young women support anti-discrimination laws. She appears to be white, although majorities of every race are supportive as well.
Whether she’s a Democrat or Republican; whether she’s Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu; whether she’s Catholic, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, mainline Protestant or evangelical, she’s likely part of a majority that believes LGBTQ people deserve the same civil rights that are extended to people in our state and country based on gender, race, age, religion, national origin or ancestry, military status or disability.
“He’s headed to Manila,” I tell her without pause. “His niece is graduating from college.”
It’s increasingly safe here in Ohio, when there’s nothing at stake at least, to mention the gender of the person I love and share my life with. I wasn’t asking the young bank teller for a job or a home loan, after all. She wasn’t my landlord or boss. I wasn’t asking her to bake me a wedding cake or treat me in the emergency room.
And I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a member of the Ohio General Assembly.
In our state, Republican lawmakers represent the only significant demographic opposed to Senate Bill 11, which would add sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression to Ohio’s nondiscrimination laws. At a May 22 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, almost all of their seats sat empty while the rest of the room was full.
Businesses support SB 11. More than 600 are part of Ohio Business Competes, a coalition pushing for statewide nondiscrimination laws. The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, which represents 8,000 more, testified in favor of the bill.
“Prohibiting discrimination… will help businesses attract the best and brightest talent from all walks of life and ensure that Ohio is viewed as a welcoming and hospitable place to do business,” said Kevin Shimp, the chamber’s director of labor and legal affairs.
But it’s always the stories of people who’ve endured discrimination that move me most.
Jody Davis told lawmakers that even though she served eight years in the Ohio Army National Guard, she had trouble renting an apartment after coming out as transgender. Landlords would tell her they worried she would make other tenants uncomfortable. The nicer ones told her they worried other tenants would make her uncomfortable.
I know teachers who’ve lost their jobs and have friends who never used their education degrees because they feared they’d be fired. I met a young bearded transgender man a few years ago who was fired from a job at a sandwich shop because his manager insisted he wear a nametag with the female name that he hadn’t legally changed. He refused.
Gov. Mike Dewine raised hopes among LGBTQ Ohioans and our allies in January when he made one of his first acts in office an executive order that prohibits discrimination against state employees based on their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
He called treating state employees with respect and civility “a matter of basic human decency.”
Isn’t that something every Ohioan deserves?