It’s as Good a Time as Any for City to Assure Gay Rights

With the bitterness of two unsuccessful attempts to name a public tribute to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. still fresh in many minds, San Diegans are facing a potentially divisive and hateful debate on another issue: a proposed city ordinance that would ban discrimination against homosexuals in housing, employment and business establishments.

The first public hearing on the proposal drew nearly 400 people to City Hall. Opposition, much of it from fundamentalist religious groups, was vehement and carried the threat of a referendum. Nonetheless, the City Council committee sent the proposal to the city attorney’s office for formal preparation as an ordinance, which should come before the whole council in the spring.

Although the timing is difficult, the committee made the right decision. The timing will probably never be easy for discussion of such an emotional issue. But what’s at stake are basic civil rights. Should qualified employees be fired simply because they are homosexual? Should someone be denied an apartment or house, or refused service in a restaurant, because his or her partner is someone of the same sex?

The Center for Social Services in San Diego says it has received about 900 complaints of discrimination against gays in its 17 years of operation--about one a week. But the problem is undoubtedly much bigger than that. Many gays are reluctant to complain for fear of retaliation or because they see no avenue for redress.

Homosexuality makes many people uncomfortable, and some believe it to be morally wrong. But, as a society, we don’t permit job discrimination against handicapped people, racial minorities or women because they might make their co-workers uncomfortable. And business establishments don’t refuse service to patrons who have been married more than once or had an abortion or use birth control, all of which are considered immoral by some people.

Homosexuality is legal in California. And gay people should have the same civil rights as heterosexuals.

Many cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Oakland, have already passed laws that prohibit various forms of discrimination against homosexuals. It’s time San Diego was added to the list.

One of the arguments against the city ordinance is that it would duplicate existing protections. California courts have broadly interpreted the law that protects against arbitrary discrimination in housing or public accommodations, so sexual orientation is probably covered, although it is not specifically mentioned. But the state Fair Employment and Housing Department says these protections do not extend to employment, where gay rights groups say most discrimination occurs. Federal protections are even fewer. Legislation to add sexual orientation to the federal Civil Rights Act has been introduced into each Congress for the past 15 years without success.

If state or federal protections were readily available, trying to pass a local ordinance right now would probably result in pointless bloodletting, given the referendum that repealed such protections in Irvine last year and other anti-gay votes around the state. And the argument that the gay community should wait to see if the next governor is more inclined than George Deukmejian to sign a statewide gay rights law is tempting, considering the prospects of a referendum. But the council should not ask gays and lesbians to put their civil rights on hold for politically strategic reasons.

The local ordinance is needed to make it feasible for victims of job discrimination to sue. And it can discourage some discrimination just by being on the books. Complaints about discrimination against AIDS patients have declined since San Diego outlawed it two years ago.

The 1987 referendum to remove Martin Luther King’s name from a downtown street and the subsequent debate over whether to name the Convention Center for him showed San Diego a side of itself that many find shameful. And now, the rights King so eloquently championed for blacks are the very rights that many homosexuals are still denied. If San Diegans hold firm to the ideal of fairness for all citizens and resist moralistic hysteria, then perhaps, in an odd way, the “human dignity” ordinance can provide some balm for the wounds left from the Martin Luther King debacle.