Ruling Carries Good, Bad News for Gays

In a ruling that contained both good and bad news for gay-rights advocates, an appeals court has invalidated a 14-year-old Los Angeles ordinance barring job discrimination against gays and lesbians, also casting a legal shadow over similar laws in a number of other California cities.

A state appeals panel, in an opinion received Thursday by attorneys, concluded that laws dealing with job discrimination are the province of the state, rather than local governments, and that the Los Angeles ordinance was therefore preempted.

At the same time, however, the 2nd Appellate District ruling reaffirmed that the state labor code prohibits job discrimination against gay men and women, even those who are not open about their homosexuality.

“Parts of it are quite good and parts of it are quite bad,” gay-rights attorney Jon Davidson said of the ruling, adding that he was concerned that the opinion undercut local authority. “Local jurisdictions have been deprived of any power to respond to local needs or local concerns by passing employment anti-discrimination” laws, Davidson complained.

State protections also lack some provisions contained in the Los Angeles ordinance and those adopted by other cities. For instance, under the Los Angeles law, victims who win their cases can be awarded attorney fees--but not under state law.

“It puts victims of sexual orientation discrimination at further disadvantage,” said attorney Thomas F. Coleman, who filed the appeal on behalf of a Los Angeles man who claimed he had been harassed at a freight firm at which he worked.

Los Angeles City Councilman and mayoral candidate Joel Wachs, who authored the 1979 municipal ordinance, said he thinks the city should make every effort to uphold it.

“We set a different climate in Los Angeles with this law,” said Wachs. “I’m going to insist that the city go forward in fighting to uphold this. Our law goes much further than the state’s. We covered a lot of areas that were not covered by the labor code. It’s critical that all of that be maintained.”

Attorneys in other cities with similar anti-discrimination laws--from San Francisco to San Diego--had not yet heard of the decision and were uncertain of its affect on their communities.

“Based on what I’m hearing--and I haven’t read the case yet--alarm does not seem to be in order,” said Phil Kohn, the city attorney for Laguna Beach. “That’s if all the court is saying is that your remedy is state rather than local law. There are a lot worse things that could have happened.”

Laguna Beach’s anti-discrimination law, the only one of its kind in Orange County, was passed in 1986 and bans various kinds of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

If Los Angeles appeals, Kohn said, “I imagine the city of Laguna Beach would lend its support.”

In the Bay Area, attorney Michael P. Adams reacted with concern. “This is going to take away one of the strongest weapons for gays and lesbians facing discrimination,” maintained Adams, a member of the Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, a regional gay and lesbian bar association.

“It doesn’t leave them without any defenses, because there is now a state law, but it is a blow nonetheless,” Adams said. He was referring to a law passed last year that amended the labor code to clarify that it prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Staff writer Marc Lacey and correspondent Leslie Earnest contributed to this article.