Emotions High at Hearing on Gay Rights : Government: San Diego City Council advances a measure to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians at a packed public hearing.

A proposal to outlaw discrimination against gays and lesbians in the city of San Diego passed its first test Wednesday in perhaps the most emotional public hearing since the City Council debated a tribute to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a year ago.

Vehement opponents of the measure matched Biblical verse prohibiting homosexuality against gays’ heartfelt stories of discrimination during two hours of testimony before the council’s Rules Committee.

The committee referred a task force’s proposed “Human Dignity Ordinance” to City Atty. John Witt’s office for formal preparation as city law.

Nearly 400 people packed the council chamber, spilling into the hallway and an adjacent conference room on the 12th floor of City Hall. At least two extra police officers were on hand, but the crowd was orderly.

The full council is expected to consider the ordinance sometime before April 30. Five of the nine council members have publicly supported the measure, seemingly guaranteeing its passage. But opponents from the religious right promised Wednesday to overturn the measure by referendum if it becomes law, an electoral contest that could prove as emotional and divisive as the two failed efforts to name a local landmark for King.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor abstained from voting after Wednesday’s debate, explaining that she does not want to take a position until Witt outlines why a local ordinance is needed to complement state and federal anti-discrimination laws. But O’Connor’s five colleagues on the committee--Wes Pratt, Ron Roberts, Linda Bernhardt, Abbe Wolfsheimer and Bob Filner--sent the proposal to Witt almost without comment.

“This ordinance is necessary,” said Pratt, who introduced the legislation written by a task force of 13 community activists, many of them gays and lesbians. “I, as an African-American elected official, cannot condone discrimination in any fashion.”

The proposal would outlaw discrimination against homosexuals in employment, housing and real estate transactions, education, business establishments and provision of city facilities and services.

Anyone who believes he or she is a victim of such discrimination would be allowed to seek a court injunction to halt it and sue for as much as three times the actual amount of damages, or as little as $250. Witt’s office also would be allowed to take legal action.

One exception written into the latest draft of the proposal would allow religious organizations to discriminate in the employment of anyone involved in actual religious rites. However, other employees of a religious organization would be covered by the anti-discrimination ordinance.

A Sept. 27 review by Deputy City Atty. Mary Kay Jackson concluded that “most of the protections requested in this proposed ordinance are not currently afforded by either federal or state law.” Jackson also added that the ban “would not provide homosexuals more protections than other groups already covered by class status” such as race, sex, religion, national origin or physical disability.

The proposal results from nearly two years of work by a task force organized by leaders of the city’s three gay political clubs, said Stan Berry, chairman of the Human Dignity Ordinance task force. Passage would add San Diego to a list of California cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Oakland that have laws on the books prohibiting various forms of discrimination against homosexuals.

In testimony Wednesday, gays and lesbians urged the council to enact the protections, saying that many still hide their sexual preferences from landlords, employers and co-workers to prevent eviction, firings and harassment. Several said they were taking a risk merely by testifying before television cameras Wednesday.

“Prejudice and discrimination against the gay minority is an institutionalized reality in our city,” said Scott Fulkerson, executive director of the Center for Social Services, a human service organization for homosexuals. “From hate crimes to employment discrimination, housing to medical care, the lesbian and gay minority is effectively locked out of full and equal participation in our society.”

Michael Portantino, a financial adviser for Prudential-Bache Securities and owner of a gay newspaper, said his boss attempted to fire him when he advertised in a gay publication using the company name, and that he is being pressured again this week because of using the company name while supporting the ordinance on a radio call-in show. Several other people told similar stories.

But many opponents of the measure criticized the establishment of legal protections for a group of people based on a “behavior,” not birth, claiming that homosexuality is a preference chosen by gays and lesbians. Some suggested that the council would have to enact similar legislation for pedophiles or adulterers.

“Should a person who commits incest within the family, claiming his behavior is immutable and his only enjoyable outlet for sexual expression, be insulated from discrimination?” asked the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, which he claimed represents 6,500 churches. “Once one begins to give protection to sexually deviant behavior and accord it special social protection, one is on a slippery slope. To encourage or enable such behavior is hardly the exercise of genuine compassion.”

Others claimed that the protections were “anti-family” and questioned whether they would unfairly hamstring the rights of employers to select workers.

At a news conference before Wednesday’s hearing, Sheldon said gays and lesbians should take their grievances about discrimination to federal court.

Some of Sheldon’s critics believe that his claims about the size of his organization are exaggerated, but he was actively involved in passage of a ballot measure that stripped homosexuals of protections under Irvine’s anti-discrimination ordinance.

At the news conference, opponents, including Sheldon’s group, an organization of evangelical churches and the Concerned Women for America, said they are preparing to launch a referendum if the council enacts the ordinance.