Subject: Louisville Mayor Wimps Out
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 1995 01:26:57 -0400

For more information, contact David Williams, Editor; The Letter;
[email-masked]; or the Fairness Campaign; [email-masked]; phone:
 502/893-0788.

LOUISVILLE MAYOR SAYS HE CAN'T PROTECT GAYS

by David Williams, Editor

Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, claiming that Kentucky law prohibits him
from doing so, has declined to sign a two-page executive order that would
have guaranteed civil rights protections based on sexual orientation for city
employees.

"The short answer is no," city law director Christina Heavrin wrote to him in
an April 18 memorandum in response to his request for a legal opinion.  She
cited several Kentucky statutes covering city government, including KRS
83.610(2), which she interpreted as giving the board of aldermen control over
employment practices.

The draft proposal, which would have also prohibited the city from doing
business in excess of $10,000 with contractors and vendors who discriminate
on the basis of sexual orientation, was presented to the mayor by Eric
Graninger, Carla Wallace, Jeff Rodgers, and Eleanor Self of the Fairness
Campaign and Mariam Ziebell of P-FLAG during on hour-long session on April
13.  Unlike a city ordinance, an executive order would have provided
protections only until the end of the mayor's term in December 1997.

Graninger, who serves as legal counsel for the Fairness Campaign, said that
the mayor was visibly shaken when presented with the proposal and raised
several objections, including his belief that there was no evidence of
discrimination at City Hall.  The group countered with two examples, which,
according to Graninger, the mayor tried to refute.  He then asked who the
employees were, but because, under current law, they could have been fired if
their sexual orientation were revealed, Graninger refused to tell him.  After
the meeting, Graninger said that some members of the group felt the mayor had
insulted them.  "He acted like we didn't matter," he contended.

"While the aldermen can set minimum job requirements for city employees,"
Graninger notes, "the mayor can legally add more.  Tina Heavrin is building a
legal closet for the mayor to hide in.  He regularly issues executive orders
dealing with city employees, and now all of a sudden he finds some reason not
to."  The Fairness Campaign is seeking a definitive opinion on the matter.

After the board of aldermen failed to pass a gay civil rights bill on March
28, the mayor said, through a spokesperson, that he would "help start the
healing process" but offered no concrete details and, consistent with his
past record, has done nothing since.  In 1993, as head of the National
Conference of Mayors, he did support a boycott against Colorado after passage
of a statewide anti-gay constitutional amendment there, but in Louisville he
has refused to take any position on local gay rights proposals.  Carla
Wallace and most other leaders of the Fairness Campaign feel that his lack of
leadership was a contributing factor in their defeat.

The only real insight into his thinking came eight years ago, when he told a
television reporter that "You can put anything you want down on paper, and if
people are the way people are, then people are going to be unfortunately
discriminated against."  Abramson himself enjoys full civil rights
protections, thanks to the federal Civil Rights Act, which was put down on
paper in 1964.