Pending legislation could broaden LGBT rights in Pennsylvania

LGBT rights could soon take another leap forward in Pennsylvania — once state legislators introduce an amendment to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.

Shortly after the Supreme Court’s landmark same-sex marriage ruling in June, Pennsylvania State Representative Dan Frankel (D-Allegheny) told The Pitt News that he and his co-sponsors hoped to reintroduce this legislation within “the next few days.” The legislation would prohibit landlords and employers, among others, from discriminating against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Specifically, the soon-to-be-introduced legislation would expand the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, which currently prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, ancestry, age and national origin. If this legislation passes, the act would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression” to its protected categories.

Staffers for Frankel and other legislators say these bills are now nearing the floors of both the Pennsylvania House and the Senate, though neither body has introduced a bill yet.

In Pennsylvania, it is currently legal to make employment decisions, to refuse to rent an apartment or grant a mortgage or to deny service at a hotel, library or hospital based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. According to LGBT advocacy organization Equality Pennsylvania, twenty-one states and Washington, DC have already passed laws to prohibit sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination.

“In the Northeast, Pennsylvania remains the only state in which you can be fired or evicted from your apartment for being gay,” Ted Martin, executive director of Equality Pennsylvania, said. “That’s shocking, it’s embarrassing and it’s behind the times.”

Of those Northeastern states, nearly all protect against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, but neither New York nor New Hampshire protect against gender identity discrimination, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

In Pennsylvania, thirty-four municipalities, including Pittsburgh, ban anti-LGBT discrimination.

Martin applauded Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh for protecting LGBT individuals at the local level, but said the state still needs a statewide anti-discrimination law to keep from losing their jobs or being evicted.

“If you work in Pittsburgh during the day and drive home to Westmoreland County, or Washington County, or Butler County, the minute you cross the border, those protections disappear. That’s the case in over 70 percent of the state,” Martin said.

When exactly state legislators will introduce these bills to prevent discrimination is unclear. On July 16, Frankel’s executive director Gabe Spece said Frankel and his co-sponsors planned to introduce the House bill by the end of July, which did not occur.

Vicki Wilken, legislative counsel for Sen. Patrick Browne, estimated that the Senate bill would reach the Senate floor by the end of August or the beginning of September.

“I think it’ll be in before the end of the summer,” Spece said.

Frankel and Rep. Chris Ross (R-Chester) will introduce the bill in the House, while Browne (R-Lehigh) and Sen. Lawrence Farnese (D-Philadelphia) will do the same in the Senate.

Similar legislation has failed to pass at least five times throughout the past decade.

Most recently, the Pennsylvania legislature’s 2013-2014 versions of nondiscrimination legislation had more than 100 bipartisan co-sponsors in the House and the Senate.

Furthermore, polls said last year that 72 percent of Pennsylvanians agreed with the bill’s goals, and nine Fortune 500 companies and more than 400 small businesses threw their support behind it. Even so, the bill died in committee without a vote.

Even as Pennsylvania’s legislators work to introduce this protection, recently-introduced similar legislation in Congress could potentially make their efforts redundant if passed.

Introduced simultaneously in the House and Senate on July 23, The Equality Act, would amend federal civil rights laws to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in matters of education, employment, housing, credit, public accommodations, jury service and federal funding — goals similar to, if broader than, those of the pending Pennsylvania bills.

However, LGBT advocates, like Martin from Equality Pennsylvania, said Pennsylvania legislators shouldn’t abandon their efforts to pass state-level legislation in hopes that federal law will accomplish the same goals, pointing out that the Equality Act could be defeated.

At least one state legislator has opposed similar legislation on religious grounds in the past. Rep. Tim Krieger (R-Westmoreland) spoke out in a 2013 statement against HB 300, the previous version of this legislation, saying that it would violate religious liberty.

“House Bill 300 would force [Christian] believers to leave their convictions at the door, and by doing so, would force them to deny the truth of their religious beliefs, or face the consequences,” Krieger said in the statement.

Wilken said members of the Senate are currently tweaking the bill’s language to secure more co-sponsors and build a broader base of support, though she could not elaborate on what language tweaks the Senate is making. According to Spece, 80 of the 203 members of the House and 26 of 50 Senators planned to co-sponsor the legislation, as of Aug. 18.

The proposed legislation, Spece said, matches its predecessors, with only a few minor language edits. Making edits and gathering co-sponsors will improve the the legislation’s chance at success, he said.

“You want to make sure your timing is right,” Spece said.