By Robert Kittle
Shortly after supporters of a bill to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation rallied at the Statehouse for its passage, the South Carolina House voted to send the bill back to committee Tuesday, effectively killing it for this year. The bill would make it illegal to fire someone in South Carolina for being gay.
Rep. James Smith, D-Columbia, says a good example of that happening is Crystal Moore, who was the police chief in the town of Latta when she was fired last year. “Who was clearly terminated because of her sexual orientation,” Rep. Smith says. “And across the state people said, ‘Well you can’t do that. That’s against the law. That doesn’t reflect who we are as South Carolinians. You can’t do that.’ Well the sad fact is you can, and it needs to stop.”
Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia, sponsor of the bill, says, “It bans discrimination in real estate transactions. It bans discrimination and makes it unlawful to discriminate against someone in a home hospice or home health agency, and it prohibits discrimination and segregation in hotels and motels.”
Cathy Ayre says it’s something she’s felt personally. “I have experienced being fired with, quote, ‘no cause.’ Sometimes it was simply they didn’t like me so that was a way to say, ‘Okay, she’s gone.'”
“What it would more affect is if I’m in the hospital and let’s say that I have a partner, that I could spend time with her rather than, ‘Okay you’re not blood, you’re not family, you can’t see her.’ Because that’s happened many, many times,” she says.
Business owners are hesitant to talk on the record about the bill after what happened in Indiana. After that state passed a religious freedom bill, a pizza shop owner told a reporter she wouldn’t cater a same-sex wedding. The shop had to close because of the backlash, but later reopened.
But The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, says of a similar federal bill, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, that it infringes on a business owner’s right to run his business the way he chooses, and increases government interference with the labor market.
The South Carolina bill had been in a House committee last week, but Rep. Rutherford was successful in getting it pulled out of committee for a vote on the House floor. The bill had little chance of passing this year anyway because of the so-called crossover deadline of May 1st. A bill has to have passed either the House or Senate by May 1st to have a realistic chance of becoming law this year. After that, it requires a two-thirds vote to even come up for debate.
But if it passed in the House, it would be further along in the process for next year. However, when the bill came up Tuesday on the House floor, representatives voted to send it back to committee. It will still be in committee for next year.
Ayre says passing the bill is a matter of fairness. “We’re regular people, like everybody else. Treat us that way,” she says.
