Council Passes Anti-Discrimination Law

Last night Metro Council passed on final reading a resolution to ban discrimination against gay and transgender workers.

The new law specifically protects employees from unfair hiring, firing or promotion practices based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The council also passed on the second of three readings a measure to ban all discrimination over non-merit factors.

That bill guards against discrimination for race, age, religion, orientation or political party, but had left out the matter of gender identity. Sponsor Sam Coleman argued including gender identity could be complicated.

“We haven’t studied. We don’t know if we would have to add a third bathroom. We don’t know what training we’d need to do. This is a powerful subject.”

Even so, members only passed the bill after amending it to include gender identity. That measure must still pass another reading before becoming law.