Asheville City Council passed the following tonight:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF
ASHEVILLE THAT:
The Asheville City Council act to affirm and protect the equal rights of all its citizens by:
- Extending the city’s employment discrimination clause to include “sexual orientation”, “gender”, and “gender identity or expression”;
- Enacting an anti-bullying ordinance for all city institutions and grounds;
- Creating a Domestic Partner Registry to recognize same-sex relationships for the purposes of providing documentation and offering a mechanism through which
hospitals, businesses, and other entities will have the opportunity to recognize these relationships; and- Endorsing and supporting the rights of same-sex couples to share fully and equally in the familial rights and responsibilities of civil marriage.
The mayor tried to “kick the can down the road.” Council had been criticized during public comment for the way it approved in concept giving domestic partner benefits to city employees, and then all of a sudden, staff was taking implementation steps. Now, council had before it a resolution, that members of the public had reason to believe would take off like an ordinance.
Worse, people, including Mayor Terry Bellamy, didn’t know what all the terms meant or implied. Bellamy tried to nail Councilman Gordon Smith down on some definitions. After all, many participating in public comment encouraged council to be a part in a momentous event in history. “If this is going to be momentous, I want to know what I’m signing.” She at least got council to agree that bullying needed a better definition.
The staff reports had mentioned giving LGBTQ couples time off to be with sick partners and bereavement benefits. This was folded into the language of the third and fourth points. Smith clarified for the mayor that it meant, and I paraphrase, council would support same-sex marriage if the state allowed it; but since it didn’t, council would support everything up to and including it.
Bellamy said she was going to refuse to support gay marriage because it ran against her convictions. She shared members of the community had refused to wait on her at a restaurant and in a store because of her stance on the issue. She had gotten “nasty emails” and been told to, “Go back to Africa.” She said that wasn’t going to stop her from being who she was and going where she wanted.
Other members of council viewed the “Resolution in Support of Full Equality for All Asheville Citizens” as what its title suggested. In other words, city council just granted the serfs equality because somehow they fell off the turnip truck in heaven and weren’t born equal. Several implored government to grant them rights of marriage and health care; breaking the old lexicon wherein a right is something that one can do without imposing on another.
