Long Beach Backs Move to Bar Bias Over AIDS

With little ado, the City Council this week endorsed a proposal outlawing discrimination against people who have AIDS.

In a unanimous vote that drew applause from a crowd of supporters, the council ordered preparation of an ordinance that would prohibit discrimination in housing, on the job, or in offering business or medical services.

“I’m glad it wasn’t controversial. Something like this shouldn’t be controversial,” said David Newell, who, as president of the Long Beach Lambda Democratic Club, has been one of the proposal’s leading proponents.

Smith Urged Support of Measure

Six California cities, including Los Angeles and Pasadena, already have AIDS anti-discrimination on the books, as do six counties, including Los Angeles. “We feel the city of Long Beach should join other cities,” Councilman Clarence Smith said in urging his colleagues’ support.

Under the proposed ordinance, those who believe they are being discriminated against because they have AIDS or are simply perceived to have AIDS could file a civil lawsuit, both for damages and to halt the discrimination. The city attorney would also have the authority to sue to stop instances of discrimination.

Advocates, who faced virtually no opposition at Tuesday’s council meeting, argued that the legislation is necessary both to protect civil rights and to create an environment in which people will undergo testing for acquired immune deficiency syndrome without fear of retribution.

“We must work to reduce the risk,” said Councilman Evan Anderson Braude, who introduced the proposal.

With more than 600 reported cases of AIDS, Long Beach has one of the most serious AIDS problems in Los Angeles County. City health officials have endorsed the ordinance, stressing that there is no medical reason to discriminate against those with AIDS.

Memo on Transmission of AIDS

“There is no evidence that the virus is transmitted in the air, by sneezing, by shaking hands, by sharing a glass, by insect bites, by living in the same household with an AIDS sufferer or by any other incidental or casual contact,” Diana M. Bonta, the city’s director of Health and Human Services, wrote in a memo to the council.

Rather, the virus that causes AIDS is transmitted through sexual contact and through exposure to infected blood, or from an infected mother to her baby at the time of birth.

One of the first cities in the nation to enact an AIDS anti-discrimination ordinance, Los Angeles assigned a deputy city attorney to handle complaints filed under the 1985 law. The city has received about 300 complaints during the four years the law has been in effect, but has never gone to court, said David Schulman, the Los Angeles city attorney who oversees the AIDS cases.

Testifying earlier at a council committee meeting on the matter, Schulman said there are several reasons why the complaints have not wound up in court. Many of them are settled, AIDS victims do not want publicity about their condition and they are often too ill to pursue a lengthy court case.

Mark S. Senak, an attorney who has handled a number of AIDS discrimination complaints around the country, said that it is his experience that if people lose their jobs because they have AIDS they are more likely to settle for financial damages and continued insurance benefits than reinstatement. “People tend not to take their job back or want it back,” said Senak, who is now working as the AIDS Project director at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach.