Ala. House bill could protect LGBT state workers

A House legislator is trying to move protections for LGBT people from text to subtext.

The House Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning approved a bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Ball, R-Huntsville, which would ban a wide variety of discrimination against the hiring and promotion of state employees.

The bill includes wording that explicitly bans discrimination based on race, ethnicity and gender, but also forbids discrimination based on “any trait or characteristic, immutable or otherwise,” unrelated to the performance of a job. The legislation would not affect private employers.

Ball’s bill is almost a word-for-word match for legislation sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston that explicitly bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Ball’s bill drops both those phrases.

However, the sponsor said after the bill’s approval – on a notably divided voice vote – that the language would reach the same ends.

“Why should I put something in the bill that is going to cause extreme people on each side of this issue to start fighting?” he said. “Am I here to create dissension or let the law reflect what I think are the values and the heart of most Alabamians?”

Marsh’s bill was carried over in a Senate committee last week. Both pieces of legislation, filed late in the session, likely have long odds of passage. But Ball, echoing comments made by Marsh last week, said he hoped the bill would send a message that Alabamians did not discriminate against people.

“This is about saying who Alabamians are, not who people think they are,” he said.

Most committee members agreed with Ball’s goals. Rep. Christopher England, R-Tuscaloosa, who has filed a broader bill that would create explicit protections for the LGBT community in both the public and private sector, said he supported Ball’s bill. However, he added that classifications exist for a reason.

“It’s because of discrimination (communities) specifically face,” he said. “I would want it to be enumerated to be sure that community is covered so they’ll protected from discrimination as well.”

England’s bill is scheduled for a public hearing in the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

Rep. David Faulkner, R-Mountain Brook, said he would never discriminate against anyone, but was uncomfortable with the broad language in the bill.

“It sends my constitutional flags through the roof when I see ‘trait or characteristic,’” he said. “That to me is going to be so vague and unconstitutional.”

Ball argued that it would ensure that nothing unrelated to job performance would be a factor in evaluating a state employees. As way of example, Ball, a retired state trooper and ABI agent, said that until U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson abolished height and weight requirements for Alabama state troopers in 1976, he could not apply for his desired job.

“Had that not happened, I wouldn’t have had my chance to have a career in law enforcement,” said Ball, who stands 5’4”.

The representative, like Marsh, said that members of the business community approached him earlier this month with the proposed legislation. Apple CEO Tim Cook, a Robertsdale native and Auburn graduate, criticized Alabama’s slow progress on LGBT rights in a speech at the Alabama State Capitol last year.