[GLCC NewsBlast: 167] Dear LGBTQ community of Allegheny County and our allies:

Dear LGBTQ community of Allegheny County and our allies:

Allegheny County Council will be voting on the Allegheny County Human
Relations Ordinance this Wednesday, July 1. Council and the County
Executive are expected to give it their final approval.

The ordinance will establish a Human Relations Commission and prohibit
most discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation
based on many characteristics including sexual orientation, gender
identity and expression. Similar protections have been in place in the
City of Pittsburgh for over 20 years. Now most of those protections
will be extended to the County borders.

As many of you are aware, three County Councilman introduced an
amendment at the Council's Government Reform Committee. This
amendment is not supported by the coalition. On Monday, Coalition
representatives met with County Executive Onorato's staff to
strategize and find an appropriate solution.

The Coalition members were able to suggest wording similar to what has
been in effect in Philadelphia for many decades. This amended
amendment would exempt Sectarian, Religious, Charitable and Fraternal
organization from complying with the Human Relations Ordinance. This
amended amendment would also not require religious organizations to
register with this Human Relations Commission and in doing so receive
the right to discriminate. We would like to reiterate that this
solution is exactly the same as what is currently in place in
Philadelphia. While the coalition does feel this is a much better
solution, this would still allow County dollars to be spent on
organizations that are exempt. This however does not prevent the
County from mandating in contracts that these types of organizations
must comply with the Human Relations Act. These types of mandates in
contracts are current practice in Philadelphia.

This ordinance meets the highest standard in trans-inclusive language
in the Commonwealth. That being said we believe that we should
SUPPORT amending the amendment as proposed by the coalition and
PASSING County Council bill 4201-08. We believe that this ordinance
will protect a majority of LGBT citizens of Allegheny County against
discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and
expression.

Although we are recommending passage of this bill with the amended
amendment, we will continue to work with our neighbors in Philadelphia
to further amend the bill so that County funding would not be
available to organization that discriminate.

We urge you to contact the following council members and ask them to
support the amended amendment:
Michael Finnerty
(412) 350-6540
mfinnerty@alleghenycounty.us

Robert Macey
(412) 350-6565
rmacey@alleghenycounty.us

William Robinson
(412) 350-6570
wrobinson@alleghenycounty.us

Jim Burn
(412) 350-6535
jburnjr@alleghenycounty.us

We also urge you to attend the meeting on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 @
5PM
(but come early the room will be packed)
436 Grant Street 4th floor - Gold Room (room may be changed to
accommodate large numbers)
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
If you wish, you may speak at the meeting on Wednesday. (You must be
registered 24 hours in advance to speak - 412.350.6490) We must also
take a moment to thank all that were involved including the prime
sponsor of the ordinance Councilperson Amanda Green. The level of
cooperation from local, state and national organizations as well as
the grassroots effort has been tremendous. This type of cooperation
for a common goal is unprecedented in Allegheny County and we look
forward to using the successes of this cooperation to further our
agenda in the future. When we work collectively together we as a
community we can accomplish great things in our quest for true
equality.

Thank you for your interest and support!
Coalition for the Allegheny County Human Relations Ordinance

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