Atlanta’s Perfect Score Leads Georgia Cities With Gay Friendly Policies

the Georgia Recorder

By Jill Nolin

December 3, 2020

Two Georgia cities bolstered their LGBTQ credentials while the state’s capital city continues to stand out for its gay friendly policies, according to a new report from a national advocacy group.

The city of Decatur and coastal Savannah improved their standing on the Human Rights Campaign’s annual analysis after both passed local laws shielding their LGBTQ residents from work, housing and public accommodation discrimination.

The new local ordinances are part of a recent trend in Georgia, which does not bar discrimination at the state level. Nearly a dozen cities have passed their own local law in the last two years, including more conservative places like Dunwoody and Statesboro, and about a half dozen others may follow suit, according to the report.

Advocates see the growing patchwork of local laws as part of a bipartisan push to convince Georgia lawmakers to pass a statewide discrimination ban. Lawmakers have historically resisted, but they did include sexual orientation in a hate crimes law that passed this year. Georgia had been one of four state without a hate crimes law.

Atlanta, which passed its anti-discrimination ordinance two decades ago, again scored 100 on the advocacy group’s Municipal Equality Index. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who recently hired the city’s first director of LGBTQ affairs, said in a video statement Thursday that mayors and cities remain the “first line of defense” on equality.

“2020 has been a roller coaster year for everyone, including the LGBTQ community,” said Bottoms, who is a prominent Georgia ally of President-elect Joe Biden. “We saw the election of the most pro-equality presidential ticket in our nation’s history and the affirming of the rights of LGBTQ people in the workplace.

“However, we also saw record high numbers of incidents and deaths for trans-Americans and recently a federal court overturned a life-saving conversion therapy ban,” she added.

Athens-Clarke County, though, saw its rating slip slightly from 40 to 29 after the report docked the local government points for not providing 2018 hate crimes statistics to the FBI.

Nationally, the cities’ collective average rating grew and more cities earned a 100 score. The nation’s progressive cities are adopting policies that protect the public as well as their employees, such as through transgender-inclusive health benefits for city workers, said Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign.

“In the absence of federal leadership, municipals have been leading the way on LGBTQ progress,” David said in a virtual press conference held Thursday.

The group also hailed this year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that centered on Clayton County court employee Gerald Bostock, who lost his job after joining a gay recreational softball league. The ruling declared that workplace discrimination on the basis of an employee’s sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited under federal law.

“While the Bostock decision is significant, there is still a lot of work left to be done,” David said. “Municipalities have a major role in ensuring that (the ruling) is appropriately implemented in their local agencies and through their enforcement agencies so that LGBTQ people can be protected from discrimination.”

This story was originally published by the Georgia Recorder. For more stories from the Georgia Recorder, visit GeorgiaRecorder.com.