Volusia County Fl and Believe or Not Anita Bryant-Is this 2011 or 1977?
Larry Glinzman is coordinating a campaign to push for a human rights ordinance in Volusia County that would bar discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. (N-J | Sean McNeil)
Singer and anti-gay activist Anita Bryant talks at a press conference in Miami Beach after her Save Our Children Coalition won repeal of a gay rights law in 1977. (AP | Bill Hudson)
Florida's gay rights history
When the Volusia County Council considers a human rights ordinance this year, it will bring Volusia into Florida's long and often combative gay rights history.
1977 Miami-Dade County passes a human rights ordinance which bars discrimination based on sexual orientation. Former Miss America and orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant leads a successful campaign to repeal the law, and the state Legislature passes a law banning gay adoption.
1991 Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa pass human rights ordinances.
1992 Voters repeal Tampa's human rights ordinance, after David Caton and the Florida Family Association lead a public relations charge against the law. Alachua County approves a human rights ordinance.
1994 Caton's push for statewide law banning local gay rights laws ends unsuccessfully, after Florida Supreme Court rules the referendum too flawed to appear on the ballot. Alachua County voters repeal human rights ordinance.
1995 Hillsborough County Commission repeals human rights ordinance.
1997 Equality Florida, gay rights advocacy group, forms. There are five local human rights ordinances in Florida cities or counties.
1998 - Miami-Dade County reinstates anti-discrimination protections to gays.
2002 Voters uphold Miam-Dade law, after another push to have it repealed.
2010 Florida Supreme Court rules gay adoption ban unconstitutional. Leon and Orange counties pass human rights ordinances, bringing the number of local ordinances in Florida to at least 13.
Source: News-Journal research
How Volusia County's law would be different:
Human rights ordinances — local laws that bar discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity — have been around in Florida since at least 1977, when Miami-Dade County passed one. That law and others passed since typically set up a human rights commission or board, a publicly funded office that investigates discrimination complaints and arranges mediations. Pinellas County's Office of Human Rights, for example, has 10 full-time employees and an annual budget of $990,000 (which covers other operations as well).
The law the Volusia County Council will consider, though, will be based on ordinances passed in Leon and Orange counties last year that send alleged victims of discrimination straight to the courts and leave it up to judges to determine the merits of their cases. Each of those laws created a "civil cause of action," giving alleged victims of discrimination the ability to sue in civil court and, potentially, win monetary damages. With the exception of a potential increased caseload for county civil courts, the ordinance has no attached cost, according to its proponents.
Gay guy walks into a bar. Bartender says, "I don't serve gays."
Gay guy goes to a job interview. Prospective employer says, "I don't hire gays."
Gay guy walks into the office of an apartment complex. Lady at the front desk says, "I don't rent to gays."
Gay guy walks into a law office. He tells the lawyer, "These people won't hire me, rent to me, or serve me because I'm gay. I want to sue."
Lawyer says, "You don't have a case."
The above hypothetical scenario is not a joke, nor is it supposed to be an indication of what happens on a daily basis in Volusia County.
It does, however, illustrate situations that are entirely legal here. For now.
A local group of gay rights advocates has been pushing for months for the Volusia County Council to pass a human rights ordinance. The law would be modeled on ordinances passed in Orange and Leon counties last year that extended anti-discrimination protections to gay or transgender people. Unlike previous human rights ordinaces, these laws gave alleged victims of discrimination the ability to sue in civil court.
County legal staff is working on a draft ordinance for the council to vote on, possibly in May. Only two of the seven council members have expressed misgivings about the law -- Councilwoman Joie Alexander has questioned whether it's needed, while County Chair Frank Bruno has said he's unsure if this is an issue for county government.
"I have a lot of questions," Bruno said in a recent interview. "I'm sure it will be heavily discussed."
Whenever the proposed law comes to the council for discussion and vote, it will bring Volusia into the long and often emotional gay rights debate which has been waged for years in Florida, and includes noteworthy victories for proponents and opponents of legal protections for homosexuals.
Which side will claim Volusia as a victory, and whether there will even be a fight over the issue here, remains to be seen.
MIX OF LAWS SKEWS CASES
Larry Glinzman moved to the Daytona Beach area in 2004 with his longtime partner. While waiting to buy a home, Glinzman visited an Ormond Beach apartment complex. Glinzman was alone when he walked into the rental office, he said, but didn't hide the fact he'd be renting the apartment with his boyfriend.
"I'm from New York. I haven't been playing this make-believe game for a long time," Glinzman, 54, public relations director for Community Legal Services, said recently as he remembered the incident.
The woman said she wouldn't be able to rent to Glinzman. He said it was clear his homosexuality was the reason.
"My blood was boiling," he recalled.
Glinzman is the man behind the local push for Volusia to join other Florida cities and counties that have barred discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in employment, housing, or places of public accommodation, like restaurants or bars. Glinzman does not think Volusia is a homophobe haven, but he said incidents like the one he experienced highlight a gap in federal and state law that should be closed by the county.
There is no federal law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Gay rights advocates have unsuccessfully pushed since the 1990s for Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which would expand federal protections to gay and transgender people. In the absence of a federal law, many states have passed ENDA-like laws.
It is still legal to discriminate against someone based on sexual orientation in 29 states, and based on gender identity in 37 states, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Florida falls into both categories.
"Most people don't realize that that's not covered in federal or state law," said Marcia Cohen, a St. Petersburg lawyer who helped draft a gay rights ordinance there. Cohen has represented gay and transgender people who felt they were the victims of discrimination and has tried, as other lawyers across the country have, to make their cases citing existing protections. Some of these cases have been successful.
In 2008, a federal judge ruled the Library of Congress broke the law when it retracted a job offer to David Schroer, a retired Army colonel and Special Forces veteran who was going through the gender reassignment process to become Diane Schroer.
Schroer won nearly $500,000 in that case, but not because the judge felt she was discriminated against for being transgender. The judge ruled it was sex discrimination, since the Library of Congress had decided a woman (Diane Schroer) with identical qualifications as a man (David Schroer) was unfit for the job.
In 1989, Orange County Sheriff Walt Gallagher forced Deputy Tom Woodard to quit after discovering Woodard was bisexual. A judge ruled in 1992 that Gallagher had violated Woodard's right to privacy, protected under the Florida Constitution, and ordered Gallagher to rehire Woodard.
As Cohen explained, victims of discrimination by private companies must "shoehorn" their case into one of a few possible arguments. If they can argue they were discriminated against because they don't fit stereotypes of masculinity or femininity, they can sue for sex discrimination. Those cases can cite a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision against Price Waterhouse that found the company discriminated against a woman when male supervisors declined to make her a partner after calling her "macho," and recommending she "take a course at charm school."
Transgender people can try to make the argument they are discriminated against because of a disability, Cohen said, but her clients often balk at that approach.
"They do not feel that they have a disability," she explained.
Andrea Lafferty disagrees. Lafferty is the executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, which lobbies against ENDA and similar laws. Lafferty said her greatest fear of these proposed laws is they would force schools to hire transgender people.
"Being a transgender person is the ultimate act of self-hatred," said Lafferty. "Transgendered individuals are terribly troubled, and they don't need to play out their personal issues and mental health issues in our nation's classrooms."
Orange County's ordinance exempts religious schools and institutions, thus preventing a Christian organization from being compelled to hire a gay or transgender person, but Lafferty fears that protection isn't enough. To Lafferty, laws like ENDA are just the first volleys by gay rights advocates, who she says will come back after an initial victory and try to expand the laws.
"They do want to force religious institutions to comply," she said. "Give it time, they will come back for you."
ANITA BRYANT TO TODAY
Lafferty is not the first gay rights opponent to say she fears the impact on schoolchildren, and she's far from the most famous. That title probably belongs to Anita Bryant, the former beauty queen, singer, and Florida orange juice pitchwoman who led a 1977 campaign to overturn a law passed in Miami-Dade County that protected gays from discrimination.
Bryant's work with the "Save Our Children Coalition" was successful; voters repealed the law just months after the County Commission passed it. Her outspokenness on the issue probably cost Bryant her career, though; by 1980 she had lost her gig representing Florida orange juice, declared bankruptcy and divorced her husband.
Miami-Dade County restored its gay rights laws in 1998, though, and a number of counties and cities across the state have passed similar laws. Most of these laws create boards or commissions that examine potential violations.
These boards have a cost, though. Pinellas County's Office of Human Rights, which deals with discrimination complaints among several other functions, has 10 full-time employees and a $990,000 annual budget. And though these offices can eventually send a case to circuit court, it can take awhile. A discrimination complaint to Miami-Dade's Commission on Human Rights needs to go through at least 10 different steps, including investigation, mediation, potential appeals, and public hearings, before it is sent to circuit court; a process that can take months.
When Leon County considered a law last year, though, county management wanted to avoid creating a board which would require county funding. So Leon County Attorney Herb Thiele researched whether a county can create a "cause of action," giving alleged victims of discrimination the right to sue in civil court. Writing laws that create causes of action is a job traditionally left to the Legislature.
"My initial reaction was we could not, but we actually came to the conclusion that we could," Thiele said.
Leon County commissioners passed the ordinance last May, then Orange County passed a similar law in November. According to attorneys in both counties, there has been only one known case citing the law, a black man who sued a Tallahassee law firm he used to work for, for race discrimination. Title VII, the federal law that outlines anti-discrimination protections, does not apply to companies with less than 15 employees, but Leon County's anti-discrimination ordinance covers all companies with five or more employees.
A gay or transgender person has yet to sue using either law.
COUNCIL LEANS TOWARD SUPPORT
Glinzman and a few other advocates of the law met with all but one of the County Council members over the last few months. Councilwoman Joie Alexander declined to meet with them, which Glinzman interpreted as her lack of interest in the law.
Alexander said recently her calendar was booked solid when Glinzman was trying to meet with her, but acknowledged she doesn't see the need for the law.
"I don't see that we have a problem," she said. "Is this an issue for local government? Are we going to create a different class of people, and can we even legislate a cause of action?"
Alexander is not alone in questioning whether the council has the power to create a cause of action; Bruno also said he had some concerns.
Council members Josh Wagner, Pat Northey, Joyce Cusack, and Carl Persis have said they solidly support the proposed law, though, and Andy Kelly indicated support pending more information.
There are other questions that even some of the lawyers who wrote the laws are unsure of, though. Would it force Hooters to hire male cocktail waitresses? Could Savoy, a Daytona Beach gay bar currently advertising bartender openings on its website for "the right guys" with "the look and the personality," be accused of discrimination?
Bob Guthrie, senior assistant county attorney in Orange County, said he doubted either of those hypothetical scenarios would spawn successful discrimination lawsuits. Hooters has actually been sued in other states for hiring discrimination, and has cited the "Bona Fide Occupational Qualification," an exemption to Title VII that protects certain types of discrimination, like the Federal Aviation Administration's "Age 60 Rule" forcing commercial airline pilots out of the cockpit when they turn 60.
Michael Blake has lived in the Daytona Beach area off and on for about 35 years. For the last 10 he has served as night manager and entertainment director at the Streamline Hotel, the historic beachfront spot where Bill France and friends founded NASCAR in December 1947.
The hotel where the decidedly macho sport was created is now home to two gay bars. Blake runs a Friday night drag impersonator show (old staples like Madonna and Cher battle for stage time with new sensation Lady Gaga) and a Saturday amateur strip show that he calls "quite popular."
Blake, 60, organized local protests against Anita Bryant's crusade in 1977, and said he's experienced some discrimination firsthand (he has an apartment-shopping story similar to Glinzman's). Blake questions how you could prove discrimination in court, though.
"These days, I would think folks are savvy enough to not say, I won't hire you because you're a big old fag," he said. "I still think there are large pockets of discrimination, bigotry . . . I just think because of the time we're in, people are more guarded."
In the end, though, Blake thinks passage of a law would be a good thing, even if its impact is minimal.
"If it helps just one person, or gives people thought before discriminating," he said, "then I'm all for it."
BY WILL HOBSON
Tittle and editing adamfoxie*
Comments