 | ||||||||
| screen shot from today's Cincinnati Enquirer |
Via Issue 3 was voters' right - City opens defense in gay-rights trial by Sharon Maloney, The Cincinnati Post, June 23, 1994:
...Issue 3, a charter amendment that repealed the gay-rights section of the city's human-rights ordinance. Issue 3 also prohibited City Council, city boards and commissions from enacting or considering gay-rights legislation in the future.
...Chris Finney, a Greater Cincinnati attorney who wrote the language of Issue 3, said its main intent was "to take away from council the right to pass this (gay rights) kind of legislation and return the right to the people." He said landlords and employers have the right not to rent to gays or employ gays if they object to their lifestyles.Via The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War by Dan Gilgoff, 2008, St, Martins Griffin:
Via Gay Marriage Case Caps Cincinnati’s Shift From Conservative Past by Sheryl Gay Stolberg in yesterday's New York Times.
In 1992, Cincinnati, under Democratic leadership, adopted a law banning discrimination in housing and employment based on sexual orientation. Phil Burress, a former union organizer who runs the advocacy group Citizens for Community Values, decided to put a stop to it. From his office in the Cincinnati suburb of Sharonville, Mr. Burress, 73, has spent decades working to stamp out pornography, strip clubs and what he calls “the homosexual agenda.”From an October 20, 2004 full-page Enquirer ad paid for by Focus on the Family:
In 1993, he mobilized a successful voter initiative to amend the city charter that stated, “No special class status may be granted based upon sexual orientation, conduct or relationships.” It passed with 62 percent of the vote. Known as Article 12, the amendment barred Cincinnati from adopting any kind of law — such as hate crimes legislation or anti-discrimination bills — aimed explicitly at protecting gay people.
...In 2004, Cincinnati voters repealed Article 12, by 54 percent to 46 percent.
