(Sen. Adam Ebbin – General Assembly photo)
BY JOSHUA KIM
STAFF WRITER
THE CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE
A bill that would prohibit school and workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identification passed the Senate today with bipartisan support in a 28 to 12 vote.
Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, introduced SB998 which states that no state, local or school employer, “…shall discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or status as a veteran.”
There are no state laws that protect LGBT Virginians from workplace discrimination.
“Currently those [LGBTQ] protections are only afforded us through executive order,” said Ted Lewis, executive director of the Richmond LGBT youth organization Side by Side. “LGBTQ people can be protected under one administration, and then a new person comes in as governor of a new party or a new ideological background and all of a sudden those protections get stripped away.”
On Jan. 11, 2017, then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed Executive Order Number 1, which granted anti-discrimination protection to LGBT employees within the state public sector. The order was repeated and strengthened by Gov. Ralph Northam in 2018.
However, as Lewis mentioned, the power and validity of an executive order wavers from administration to administration.
SB998 is not the first bill of its kind.
In 2018, four anti-LGBT discrimination bills made their way through the General Assembly. Similarly to this year, each bill had bipartisan support within a Republican controlled Senate and easily passed. But House Speaker Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, killed all four bills in subcommittee when they reached that chamber.
However, LGBT advocacy group Equality Virginia’s executive director James Parrish is optimistic about this year’s run.
“We believe we now have the support necessary on the floor and so we’ve been working the past year to make we have support in the House General Laws Committee where these bills are usually heard,” Parrish said.
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