×

​Fairness outvoted – Fairness Ordinance fails after 8-4 Wednesday vote

A little after 5 p.m., Eddie is leaning against the City Hall building with five friends, one of whom is wearing a cowboy hat. Another one in a suit and purple and yellow tie has a hearing aid and doesn’t like to be quoted because “Everyone gets something he says wrong all the time.”

Eddie doesn’t want to give his name because “there’s this thing called the right to anonymity,” but he has a lot to say. He’s angry, and his eyebrows furrow at the indication that someone might ask him a question. He looks like he might be two cigarettes away from a heart attack and tells me to use my own last name for his lone quotation.

“Justice prevailed,” Eddie Sigur says.

I fear this man might punch me in the face, because he looks as though he believes I’m another reporter with a liberal agenda. As he chews the bottom of his lip, I walk away before he can say—or do—anything else.

Just a few feet away are locals Richard Mahoney and Norman Smith. They hold signs defining what marriage is and isn’t. Mahoney is carrying a cross and a picture of a man and woman with the words “marriage sacramental” printed above it.

Smith has a double-sided picture. One with “God’s plan,” showing a picture of a family picnicking in the sunlight. The other showing two men touching noses under the words “This is Satan’s Plan.”

We talk a little before the 4 p.m. Metro Council Meeting in which the Fairness Ordinance Act will be voted on and dismissed by a tally of 8-4.

“We want to educate the people about marriage,” Mahoney says, mentioning the definition of marriage from “Webster’s.”

Both Smith and Mahoney say they “love the sinner, but not the sin.” Mahoney expands on the conversation and looks over at an oak tree across the street.

“You can’t call that tree a giraffe,” he says.

As I start to walk into City Hall, a man in sunglasses and a black suit says, “Good job, Rich.”

A policeman directs me to the elevator.

“It’ll be on the third floor,” he says. “You’ll have to surrender any weapons you might have.”

I’ve never shot a gun in my life so I laugh. The policeman stares at me blankly.

In the elevator ride up, a transgender woman is standing in the right corner. Between us are three white men. One looks like New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. Another man is balding with a peppered beard, and he has eyes that dart, wondering when the elevator doors will open.

The transgender woman speaks up. “What’s the deal with all this security? It’s just a Metro Council meeting. I ain’t never seen anything like this before.”

Silence.

I’m one of the final people allowed into the packed council meeting room and find myself standing next to the men from the elevator. A man starts the meeting with an invocation, asking the council members to make decisions “knowing they will be judged by God and all creation.”

A Boy Scout troop follows, saying the Pledge of Allegiance then smiling as they exit.

On the docket are ordinances for this appropriation and that, business talk and road improvements, but the room is full for one reason: to see if the members of the Metro Council would pass the Fairness Ordinance Act.

The act, proposed by Council Member C. Denise Marcelle, makes it unlawful for employers to refuse to hire or fire any individual or discriminate against any individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment because of race, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, sex, veteran’s status, gender identity or sexual orientation. In a nutshell, it is an amendment to Title 8 and 9 ordinances of the City of Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish, asking for a ban of discrimination in matters of private employment, housing and real estate and public accommodation. The full ordinance can be read here.

The language that has been latched onto in the ordinance by its opponents is the term “sexual orientation.” Since its debut, the Fairness Ordinance Act became a matter of acknowledging members of the LGBT community. After an hour of discussion Wednesday, the Metro Council acknowledged that certain members of the community can be discriminated against from here on—or at least until new council members are elected.

Council Member Buddy Amoroso began the debate, saying discrimination of homosexuals isn’t on the same level as it was during the Jim Crow laws, and that this ordinance will create an atmosphere of more legal fees. Amoroso cherry-picks headlines during his speech, showing how the ordinance will backfire and discriminate against Christians. He says this is a religious liberty issue, which gets a rousing “mm-hmmm” from the gentleman to my left.

Council member Ronnie Edwards also votes nay after talking for five minutes about how she supports the bill. Her main concern is that 12 people of the community shouldn’t decide on this matter and that there is no room for alternative language in the bill.

While Council Member John Delgado fumbles for words and stutters through his five minutes to show support, Marcelle brings in a much-needed hammer of emotion. She tries to rally council members in support of the act.

“Discrimination is discrimination,” she says, combating the points her “kind neighbor” Amoroso made earlier.

With a negative vote, she says we’re telling businesses there is “no consequence.” “You can do whatever you want to do.”

Meanwhile, Council Member Ryan Heck looks on like a young, hungry and angry Huey P. Long. He shakes his head in disgust while Edwards and Marcelle speak.

Amoroso looks on, gaping at the scene with his eyebrows waving.

Marcelle also talks about how she has received more scriptures than she ever heard in Sunday school. She, like Delgado, gets a roaring applause from those who want the fairness ordinance to pass, much to the chagrin of the old white men surrounding me.

Council Member Donna Collins-Lewis takes the stand, exhausted and asking that everyone respect each other.

She calls that they move to vote. Thirty seconds pass, and the results come in. Someone in the crowd shouts “Cowards!”

The elevator ride down from the third floor of city hall is stuffy. Outside City Hall, traffic noises have been replaced with sighs and hot breath.

Barrington R. Neil, a Baton Rouge lawyer, walks outside with LSU English professor Michael Bibler. While Neil is flummoxed and emotional, Bibler is not surprised.

“The people who voted against it said they were against it from the beginning,” he says. “Despite all the claims of listening to both sides, it doesn’t seem they have really approached it with an open mind.”

Neil calls the vote outrageous and shameful.

“The biggest disappointment is that females and black folks were actually against this ordinance,” he says. “To me, there’s no distinction. Bigotry is bigotry. Yet these people have so much protection religiously that they’ve found some way to spin this as some kind of attack on religious liberty. To get the majority of the council to buy such a specious argument indicated that we have one of the more intellectually-challenged councils running this fair city.”

While people file out of City Hall, covered in the anger and exasperation of all the arguments made for and against the ordinance—a debate that divides the city whether people like it or not—no one seems to notice the statue to the left of the building, mere steps away. It’s a statue of two people holding each other in a longing embrace and letting go of their pain.

Right here in the heart of the city stands an iconic piece of art meant to reflect the spirit and the hopes of Baton Rouge. But according to the decision made by the Metro Council Wednesday afternoon, what that statue represents is not true at all—at least it isn’t yet.