Wichita City Hall passes anti-discrimination ordinance after long, emotional debate
The Wichita City Council has given tentative approval to an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting sexual, racial and other minorities, following emotional pleas from discrimination victims and at times intense debate on the council bench.
The new ordinance is designed to ban discrimination citywide on the basis of “actual or perceived age, color, disability, familial status, gender identity, genetic information, national origin or ancestry, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status or any other factor protected by law.”
It would apply to all workplaces, housing and public-serving businesses in the city.
Persons found to have discriminated against members of a protected group would face a mandatory fine of $500 for first offense, $1,000 for second and $2,000 for third. Each day a discriminatory practice continues would be its own violation.
The ordinance, crafted over the weekend with LGBTQ-rights advocates, will almost certainly be revised between now and when it comes up for a final vote on July 6. Council member Becky Tuttle in particular pressed for an appeal process and answers on how the money from fines would be spent.
The measure replaces an anti-discrimination ordinance that excluded sexual minorities and that mysteriously disappeared from city code in 1999.
The new ordinance surfaced last week, but in a different form with no enforcement mechanism. It was immediately denounced by Equality Kansas and the national group Human Rights Campaign, who took a firm hand in rewriting it with teeth.
Members of Equality Kansas served as the proponents and experts on the ordinance when it came before the council Tuesday.
“It speaks to the dignity and worth of all marginalized groups in Wichita,” said Kerry Wilks, the chair of Equality Kansas and an associate dean at Wichita State University.
“You might wonder why LGBTQ people are the ones at this stage,” said Wilks, one of the plaintiffs in the court case that ended Kansas’ ban on same-sex marriage. “Well, it’s not just for us, to be clear, it’s for all marginalized groups and LGBTQ people are the ones that are not addressed at the state and federal level fully.”
The Rev. Jackie Carter of the LGBTQ-inclusive Table of Hope Metropolitan Community Church, told the council about having to pastor “grandmothers who are calling me and saying, ‘My child had strawberries thrown at them at the grocery store,’ or ‘My daughter got kicked out of their apartment.’
“If you don’t think those things happen in Wichita, Kansas, you’re living under a rock, because they still do,” Carter said. “We still have landlords that don’t want to have same-gender-loving folks to stay in their properties. We still have bosses who (say), ‘You know, it’s OK if you are same gender loving as long as you don’t bring that person (around work) or you don’t talk anything about it.’”
The hardest part is ministering to LGBTQ youth who want to kill themselves because of mistreatment by society, Carter said.
“I’m the one that gets called to the hospital to try to do the funeral arrangements,” Carter said. “I mean, I just did last week, suicide. I’ve got two kids right now . . . 19 and 16, you know, tried to commit suicide. ”
The ordinance passed 4-3 with two of the members who voted for it — Becky Tuttle and Cindy Claycomb — expressing some misgivings about the speed of the process and the lack of public input before it came to a vote.
They joined Mayor Brandon Whipple and council member Brandon Johnson in giving it the bare majority for passage.
Jared Cerullo, the only openly gay member of the council, voted no, saying he was left out of the drafting of the ordinance and only got a copy of the final product Monday night, which was his birthday.
“As a gay man, as a proud gay man, I’m a bit offended,” he said. “No one came to me to ask what I thought about this plan.”
He was joined in dissent by council members Bryan Frye and Jeff Blubaugh.
No council members expressed fundamental opposition to the ordinance or its goals, but several objected to voting on a measure that had been changed significantly since it was reviewed publicly on Friday.
“I’m concerned that many of our neighbors have not seen these (amendment) documents, have not been contacted . . . and even though it’s just eight sentences, those eight sentences have weight to them,” Frye said.
He added that neither the city’s district advisory boards nor the newly formed Diversity, Inclusion and Civil Rights Board had gotten a chance to weigh in.
“We typically do this to create, build coalitions, get feedback or consensus and develop refinements to make it better,” he said. “Right now, this feels ironically enough not inclusive. We’re leaving people out.”
He directly addressed members of Equality Kansas.
“I certainly appreciate you being here and helping draft this, but you’re one group and there are many groups that need to be heard,” he said. “And I think you’re hearing from this council and some of the questions that are being asked, let’s get it right and something that’s not just ‘good enough,’ but aspirationally, as best it could be.”
Whipple heatedly responded that after hearing stories directly from victims about discrimination they face in the community — and given the heavy media coverage of the issue over the weekend — delay would be unjustified.
“Not one person came here today to argue against this,” he said. “We had people come here today, subject matter experts and people whose lives are impacted by this, who mentor and pastor to children (and parents) who are dealing with their children committing suicide because we don’t have something like this.
“So the idea that we need to put this out (for more comment) because there might be maybe a group that wants to come in and argue against an ordinance to protect people from discrimination that 20 other cities (in Kansas) have passed, I find that just not a good enough reason to vote against this ordinance that should have been done already,” Whipple said.
When Frye tried to respond to that, Whipple told him, “You don’t have the floor, sir.”
When Frye persisted, Whipple told him, “You need to push your button and be recognized. Council member Tuttle has the floor and she’s an equal member.”
Replied Frye: “In transparency, why are you objecting to transparency? That’s the question.”
“Order, order,” Whipple responded. “Council member Tuttle has the floor. Sir (Frye), push your button and you can have the floor. Council member Tuttle, thanks for pushing your button following the standards set by this body.”
Tuttle sought to defuse the moment, remarking on the feedback from the council chamber’s sound system, which was malfunctioning all day Tuesday.
“Is everyone else hearing that or is it just me?” she asked, chuckling, before addressing Equality Kansas advocates on why the ordinance might still need revision.
“Sometimes I beat a dead horse and I need to know when to dismount, but I just have to say it: The reason that the fantastic speakers are here today is because you were aware of this, and the additions, you had the luxury of being involved in the process this weekend,” she said. “It’s not that I’m not going to be supportive. I just think that we are beholden to listen to the constituents and our community members and it was a missed opportunity, not because I wanted people to come against it, but quite the opposite.”
This story was originally published June 15, 2021 at 4:12 PM with the headline "Wichita City Hall passes anti-discrimination ordinance after long, emotional debate."
