As of Thursday, January 9, 2014, 16 co-sponsors – a record, according to the Louisville-based Fairness Campaign – have signed on to Kentucky’s House Bill 171, known as the Statewide Fairness Bill. The bill was initially filed in the General Assembly yesterday by Rep. Mary Lou Marzian (D-Louisville).
The Fairness Campaign said six new representatives – Rep. Denver Butler (D-Louisville), Rep. Jesse Crenshaw (D-Lexington), Rep. Jeffrey Donahue (D-Louisville), Rep. Derrick Graham (D-Frankfort), Rep. Rita Smart (D-Richmond) and Rep. David Watkins (D-Henderson) – joined the original 10 bill sponsors. The Campaign said, in a press release, the increase in sponsorship illustrates “the rapid growth of support across the Commonwealth for anti-discrimination protections in employment, housing and public accommodation including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.”
Last month, Morehead’s passage of a city-level version of the law rounded out a year in which Kentucky doubled the number of municipalities with Fairness ordinances, adding Frankfort and the Appalachian town of Vicco to Covington, Lexington and Louisville, which passed LGBT protections more than a decade ago.
Grassroots movements to pass local Fairness laws are underway, reported the Campaign, in nearly a dozen other Kentucky cities, including Bowling Green, Danville, Elizabethtown, Owensboro, Shelbyville and Berea, where the city council has appointed a task force to draft a local Fairness law.
“This type of unprecedented support at the statewide level is clear and compelling evidence that Kentucky is moving in the right direction – towards LGBT Fairness,” said Fairness Campaign director Chris Hartman. “Coupled with the tremendous progress across the whole Commonwealth, these new co-sponsors should compel House Leadership and the Judiciary Committee to finally hold a hearing on the legislation, which they have avoided the past 15 years.”
More than 25 percent of Kentucky’s population now lives in a city with LGBT Fairness protections and 83 percent of all registered Kentucky voters support a statewide Fairness law, according to a recent survey by The Schapiro Group:
A statewide Fairness rally will be held in the Capitol Rotunda Wednesday, Feb. 19 at 1:30 p.m. in Frankfort.
The original 10 sponsors of House Bill 171 are:
• Rep. Tom Burch (D-Louisville) • Rep. Kelly Flood (D-Lexington) • Rep. Joni Jenkins (D-Louisville) • Rep. Mary Lou Marzian (D-Louisville) • Rep. Reginald Meeks (D-Louisville) • Rep. Darryl Owens (D-Louisville) •: Rep. Ruth Ann Palumbo (D-Lexington) • Rep. Arnold Simpson (D-Covington) • Rep. Jim Wayne (D-Louisville) • Rep. Susan Westrom (D-Lexington)