Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings voiced his support Wednesday for the Equality Resolution during the City Council meeting. The resolution passed 13-2. (Steve Ramos/Dallas Voice)
Dallas council members passed an equality resolution Wednesday morning almost a year after a marriage equality resolution failed to be considered by the council.
The measure passed 13-2 with only Councilmembers Vonciel Jones Hill and Sheffie Kadane voting against. It’s the council’s most significant show of support for the LGBT community in a decade when the council approved domestic partner benefits in 2004.
Mayor Mike Rawlings voted in favor after coming out in support of the resolution on Tuesday. Rawlings blocked last year’s resolution from being added to the agenda after former Councilwoman Delia Jasso pulled her support from a memo requiring the item to be voted on. More recently, Rawlings stalled the current resolution a week by having legal questions addressed during executive session last Wednesday.
“I am proud to have voted in favor of this,” Rawlings said after the resolution passed. “It’s very humbling to be mayor of this city. We have so many great communities. …There’s not a better community in the city of Dallas than the LGBT community.”
Councilman Tennell Atkins said he believed everyone “should be equal in God’s eyes.” But he added he was disappointed in city staff, because he expressed in committee that the resolution was a last-minute addition to the February committee presentation. He said he would’ve liked staff to have brought the resolution to him in advance instead of expecting him to vote on it minutes after he’d first seen it.
“It’s disrespectful to me and to the whole council,” he said about the quick addition of the resolution, adding that he still would have supported it.
City Manager A.C. Gonzalez said he’s begun discussions with city staff about employee pensions and other items. However, he said anything with a financial impact would be brought to committee. He expected a report to be presented next quarter with a list of items and a timetable for implementation.
“That process has already begun, but I can’t give you an answer on one which one will be first,” Gonzalez said.
Councilman Sheffie Kadane said he thought the resolution shouldn’t target just the LGBT community, as he mentioned previously in committee when he voted against the measure.
“I believe this resolution is discriminatory,” Kadane said.
He suggested the resolution should read LGBT community plus one to ensure equal treatment for two siblings or same-sex people who aren’t LGBT who live together to have the same rights. Councilman Rick Callahan later echoed Kadane’s concept of making the resolution a measure for everyone in Dallas and was in favor of adding a plus one element for things like the pension program. But the resolution passed without changes.
Councilman Dwaine Caraway mentioned the tension last June when members of the LGBT community stood up and turned their backs to him when he suggested the resolution go to committee. He said he’s made up with those advocates, and the current resolution accomplishes more because the community worked with council members after the last resolution failed to move forward.
“At the end of the day there’s a mission, and you’re closer to accomplishing that mission,” Caraway said. “Look at where we are together.”
Members and allies of the LGBT community filled the seats at the Dallas City Council meeting Wednesday to show support for the Equality Resolution. (Steve Ramos/Dallas Voice)
He asked the LGBT community to “band together” to support other equality efforts that affect other minority communities like the African-American community. Advocates in the audience applauded his words.
“This is a breakthrough and this a beginning,” he said.
The measure is a “comprehensive statement of support” that directs city staff to evaluate and fix the inequities for LGBT employees in city employment. Changes that require council approval will be brought to the Finance, Budget and Audit Committee first. Councilman Jerry Allen, committee chair, had openly gay city employees Theresa O’Donnell and John Rogers make three presentations on LGBT issues before the committee passed the resolution in February.
Allen said passing the resolution is “a historic day” for Dallas and thanked O’Donnell and Rogers for their work over the past months to being the resolution forward.
Some items the city’s LGBT Task Force plan to resolve quickly are adding comprehensive transgender healthcare for city employees, making the pension plans equal for same-sex spouses and updating policies to improve the city’s score on the Hunan Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index.
More than 30 LGBT advocates wearing red sat in the audience during the meeting and clapped when the resolution passed.
Several also addressed the council about the resolution before its passage.
Resource Center’s Rafael McDonnell called the resolution a road map and a model for other cities, and he recognized the Dallas LGBT advocates and former out Dallas council members who have worked for equality over the years and who would ensure the resolution brought progress.
“We will be here to verify the result,” he said. “You’re making history here today, and I’m very proud of that,” McDonnell added.
Former Councilwoman Veletta Forsythe-Lill recalled being in the audience two decades ago when the council discussed nondiscrimination policy. She said some discrimination is blatant and some is unintentional, urging the council to finish the work the council began 20 years ago.
“Sometimes [discrimination] can even come in the form of an oversight,” she said. “Compete the work of two decades and close the circle of equality for the LGBT community.”
Activist Todd Whitley asked the council to put aside religious beliefs and to stand for all the citizens of Dallas by supporting the measure to bring full equality for city employees, citizens and visitors.
“Voting for this resolution is a long, overdue start,” Whitley said. “Please use your power for us, not against us.”
David Mack Henderson, president of Fairness Fort Worth, called out the city leadership on not already having citywide employee cultural competency training, which all Fort Worth employees go through. He also said Cowtown’s police department has recruited Dallas LGBT officers because of its more inclusive policies.
He also cautioned that the LGBT community would not go away and would be back to ensure the measure brings change.
“You must implement these changes or what you call progress others will call procrastination,” Henderson said.
Trans Pride Initiative applauded the decision Wednesday and the future changes the resolution will create.
“We are excited about the potential for change this brings,” said Trans Pride Initiative President and Dallas LGBT Task Force member Nell Gaither in a statement. “Trans persons are often exempted from certain services and procedures in health insurance coverage, even though others who are not trans can access those same benefits.”
Gaither has been a strong proponent of the city offering comprehensive transgender healthcare coverage, which many LGBT advocates now hope will be added.
“Medically necessary care should be available to all, whether they are trans or not,” Gaither said.
