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Little Rock Challenges Arkansas Discrimination Law, Passes Protections for Gays

Little Rock Challenges Arkansas Discrimination Law, Passes Protections for Gays

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By Victor Morton

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The city of Little Rock is defying the state of Arkansas by passing a new law providing anti-discrimination protections to homosexuals and the transgendered.

The city council approved the new ordinance on a 7-2 vote on Tuesday, despite criticism that it ran counter to a state law prohibiting cities and counties from applying anti-discrimination laws to more categories of persons than the state does.

Earlier this year, Arkansas became the second state — after Tennessee — to limit local governments from broadening anti-discrimination laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The state also came under fire more recently — a significant part of it coming from in-state businesses such as Wal-Mart — for passing a religious-freedom law that was characterized by opponents and the national media as providing a pass for anti-gay discrimination.

The city ordinance prohibits Little Rock city agencies from discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and requires that any vendors doing business with the city have a similar non-discrimination policy.

“I think we’re sending a message that we’re a welcoming community, that we’re diverse, that we realize that’s good for business, that we value all of our citizens,” said Kathy Webb, one of the city’s nine directors and the proposal’s sponsor. “I think that’s very important to make that kind of statement for Little Rock.”

Pro-gay Little Rock officials said their law wasn’t prevented by the state law — known as Act 137 — because it only applied to city government itself and its vendors. It doesn’t actually require businesses to have non-discrimination policies, only declares that if they don’t, they can’t get city contracts. [box] Galatians 2:4 But it was because of the false brethren secretly brought in, who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. Founders’ Bible article Isaiah 1:26, page 1023. Excerpt from John Dickinson: “What innumerable acts of injustice may be committed, and how fatally may the principle of liberty be sapped, by a succession of judges utterly independent of the people.”[/box]

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