S.C. House Democrats push for anti-discrimination measure ends on House floor

COLUMBIA — A anti-discrimination bill that S.C. House Democrats hoped would get a up-or-down vote Tuesday was quickly jettisoned back to a committee for further study.

Democrats said earlier at a rally in the Statehouse lobby that South Carolina should send a clear signal to businesses and its residents that it won’t tolerate discrimination against someone’s sexual orientation. But they also said they expected to be overruled on the measure by the House GOP, which subsequently outvoted Democrats 79-34 largely along party lines to study the measure further.

House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford and other leading Democrats, including Reps. James Smith and Gilda Cobb-Hunter, said that South Carolina should take the opportunity to be the first in the southeast to pass an anti-discrimination ensuring gay people have legal options if they are discriminated against.

The law was introduced in response to the uproar over a religious freedom measure in Indiana that critics worried could be used for businesses to discriminate against patrons.

“This is the beginning of the civil rights movement in South Carolina,” Rutherford said. “People say you can’t do that (discriminate). The sad fact is you can and it needs to stop.”

The Democrats gathered with about 30 activists pushing for the anti-discrimination measure.

Smith said the firing of a police chief last year in Latta, S.C., was a sign the law is needed. The police chief of the small town, Crystal Moore, said she was fired for being openly gay. The town rallied around her and a large public outcry pushed the town to rehire her, according to media reports.

The bill, H. 3950, would add sexual orientation and gender to a list of protected classes. Specifically, it ensures hotels, motels, restaurants and boardinghouses, as well as realtors or landlords, cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Indiana’s measure was widely criticized this year. It brought threats of boycotts because activists worried that businesses could use the religious-freedom law to turn away gay customers. The Indiana Legislature later inserted language into the law to ensure it couldn’t be used to discriminate

View the original content and more from this author here: http://ift.tt/1zxZqOP

from democratic dojo http://ift.tt/1PmHF7h
via IFTTT