Only 12 anti-LGBT potestors (not one of which was from Salina, Kansas) showed up to protest outside the Salina Community Theatre in Kansas where the Salina City Commission voted on a proposal that would make sexual orientation and gender identity classes protected from discrimination in Salina.
Narrowly approved on it’s first reading Monday by a 3 -2 vote, the change would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of classes protected from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodation in the city’s current anti-discrimination ordinance.
City Commissioner Aaron Householter (pictured left) a strong supporter of the ordiance stood up proudly and fought aggresively for its passage during the four hour discussion that preceeded the vote even though most of the commissioners avoided interaction during that period.
When Phil Cosby, with the American Family Association, spoke about the need for transgender people to seek mental help and how same-sex marriage doesn’t create a family, Householter asked him for the definition of family.
“Traditional family, as in Genesis, male and female, ‘I say to them go forth and multiply,’ ” Cosby said. “One of the biological problems with transgenderism and natural and unnatural goes to the point of multiplication.”
Cosby said his relationship is more special than that of same-sex couples because he can have children with his wife.
“It is the plumbing, the design and natural law,” Cosby said.
Householter said he has a family with his girlfriend and her child but it didn’t meet Cosby’s definition.
“I have not gone forth and multiplied, and I have family,” Householter said.
Householter even came under attack from Salinan resident Carol Reed said she assumed Householter was gay based on comments he made regarding the ordinance. to which he replied: “Some people would think so because of my excellent taste in clothing and material objects but, no, I am not,” Householter said. “My girlfriend is sitting up there.”
While the ordinance has to be voted on twice by the commission and could pass the issue on it’s second reading next week opponents have promised an appeal would be made that could put the issue to a public vote.
Robert Noland, of the Wichita-based Kansas Family Policy Center, said he is already working on a petition which would have to be signed by 25 percent of the more than 5,000 people who voted in the last city election.
Last month the KFPC presented a petition to stop the ordinance to the City Commissioners demanding that the ordiance be stricken. The petition only had 344-signatures.