A Roeland Park equal-rights ordinance takes a hit from a dubious hired gun
It is a testament to how far the gay-rights movement has come in America that those who oppose providing the LGBT community equal protection under the law are no longer comfortable coming right out and saying so. Even in late-adopting states such as Missouri and Kansas, anti-gay sentiment is now widely perceived for what it is: ugly. Under such conditions, non-bigoted-sounding reasons must be invented to perpetuate the denial of equal rights to gay persons.
These faux concerns range from financial (“It’ll cost too much taxpayer money to implement and enforce these new laws”) to constitutional (“You can’t tell a private business owner who he can and cannot serve”; “Selling a cake to a gay couple’s wedding goes against someone’s religion”) to wildly theoretical (“A transgender woman could rape women and children in a public restroom”).
One ridiculous battle in this war is playing out in Roeland Park. On March 3, City Council members Megan England and Jennifer Gunby introduced an ordinance that would add sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI, as it is known in legal and civic shorthand) to the group of classes protected by the Kansas municipality’s anti-discrimination law. Roeland Park’s laws already protect individuals against discrimination on the bases of race, religion, color, age, sex, disability, national origin, ancestry and familial status. Under the new ordinance, LGBT individuals could no longer be discriminated against in employment, housing and business regulations.
Such protection is not yet offered by the state of Kansas or by the federal government, but 190 U.S. cities and counties have made the move. Locally, Kansas City, Missouri; Lawrence; and Columbia all have SOGI ordinances on the books. And polling suggests that the public approves: A 2014 poll by Public Policy Polling found that only 29 percent of Kansans supported a state law allowing businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples.
At the March 3 meeting, several Roeland Park council members were excruciatingly careful not to offend the LGBT community while also not endorsing the proposed ordinance update.
“I want this to pass,” said Councilwoman Becky Fast – who went on to stress that the business community would need to be consulted before any final decision was made.
Councilwoman Mel Croston boasted about having “six transgender friends,” but then questioned whether any discrimination was actually taking place in Roeland Park. “If nobody’s being discriminated against, why pass the ordinance?”
Councilwoman Sheri McNeil also has gay friends, she said, who had always found Roeland Park to be a welcoming place. So welcoming, she added, that she felt the ordinance was unnecessary.
Fast and Croston and McNeil did not say how they might feel if it was legal in Roeland Park to be fired or denied residency for being, say, a middle-aged white woman.
The council ultimately decided that, although England and Gunby’s proposed ordinance was drafted using language from states and cities where similar changes have been successfully carried out, and it had been vetted by the city’s lawyer, weeks of more research would be required before a council vote. (There are eight council members; the mayor, Joel Marquardt, votes only to break ties.)
Things got considerably more interesting at a council meeting in early May. A group of citizens turned up to oppose the ordinance; some of those citizens were parishioners at St. Agnes, a Catholic church that, according to some who live in the suburb, wields impressive political influence. The opposition’s unofficial legal representative, Dale Schowengerdt, was permitted to speak for 10 minutes about why the ordinance spelled bad news for the city.
Schowengerdt is not a Roeland Park resident. He received his law degree from the Pat Robertson-founded Regent University School of Law. He provides legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a family-values organization that exists mostly to oppose abortion rights and equal rights to gay people.
Schowengerdt is also the son of Steven Schowengerdt, who in April was elected mayor of Mission, which neighbors Roeland Park. (Emboldened by the mandate of his 19-vote victory, Schowengerdt Sr.’s first action as mayor was to deliver a Christian prayer at his inaugural council meeting.)
Dale Schowengerdt schooled the Roeland Park council: “When you talk about sexual identity, it’s different than race in that it’s more subjective because it’s harder to classify. It’s based on subjective indications by the person. It raises complications legally in trying to enforce it.”
Gunby interrupted Schowengerdt’s demeaning legalese. “Let me jump in right there,” she said. “I don’t believe that it’s a choice or that it’s subjective.”
“Whether it’s a choice or not, I’m not commenting on that,” Schowengerdt continued. “But the reason that most states haven’t passed this is because they’re wrestling with complicated legal issues related to it. A city the size of Roeland Park should think seriously about it because there will be serious costs associated with it.”
He went on to cite a case that he said he was working on in Washington state, which allegedly received 666 complaints in a year, only five of which were deemed to have merit. He argued that Roeland Park was not equipped to handle a large number of frivolous complaints.
That sounds like a not-unfair administrative concern – until you remember that it’s not even remotely consistent with the experiences of municipalities that have passed SOGI ordinances.
Since 2008, for example, Kansas City has fielded just 31 SOGI complaints. Since it enacted sexual-orientation protection, all the way back in 1995, Lawrence – a city 12 times more populous than Roeland Park – has fielded a total of nine sexual-orientation complaints. Since adding gender-identity protection, in 2011, it has recorded exactly one gender-identity complaint. There were zero SOGI complaints in Columbia (14 times the population of Roeland Park) in 2013.
Schowengerdt then took an anecdotal detour and told the council that he had heard about a male-born transgender person in Canada who once entered a women’s restroom, sexually assaulted women and children there, and then used a SOGI ordinance as a legal defense. Pressed for an example from the United States, he trotted out a story about a New Mexico photographer who was sued for not taking photos of a gay wedding. Eventually his time ran out.
At a subsequent council meeting, on June 2, several citizens spoke up in favor of the ordinance. A transsexual woman named Una Nowling noted that “opposing the progress of civil rights has never been a winning strategy.”
One woman in the audience disagreed. Maureen Reardon voiced her concern that a fish fry at St. Agnes, an event that technically is a commercial enterprise, would now be forced to serve gay persons – which, she complained, amounted to an intrusion on church members’ freedom of religion. “And what about Girl Scouts who sell cookies in the vestibule?” she asked.
If the absurdity of the situation wasn’t clear before, this episode brought it into bright focus: An older woman in nice clothes standing up in front of a crowd of people, trembling with rage at the idea that her church’s right to discriminate against gays was being infringed upon.
Reardon and Schowengerdt – and everyone else not in line with the idea that every citizen is entitled to the same rights under the law – will just have to get used to it. The only real question left about gay rights is how soon equal protection will be universal. For now, the Roeland Park City Council has an opportunity to accelerate the inevitable with the correct answer to a simple question: Do LGBT residents of Roeland Park deserve all the same rights afforded to other Roeland Park residents? If the answer is yes, there’s only one way to vote.
Of course, there’s also the wrong way to vote, and, following Schowengerdt’s performance, that could still happen. After being pushed back three times, the council vote on the ordinance is set for June 16. England and Gunby remain firm yeses, and Councilwoman Teresa Kelly and Mayor Marquardt are believed likely to offer their support. They’ll need one more council vote if fairness is to prevail.
