Joined by a coalition of Kentucky gay rights leaders, residents in Elizabethtown and Richmond are pressuring lawmakers to enact fairness laws in their cities.
The effort is part of a larger grassroots movement across the state to get such legislation passed in other cities such as Shelbyville, Bowling Green and Berea. Both ordinances would prohibit discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
In Kentucky, only the cities of Covington, Lexington and Louisville have a fairness legislation.
Louisville Fairness Campaign Chris Hartman says many residents in rural areas of the state don’t know that discrimination against LGBT citizens is still permitted.
"I think that there’s an assumption that these protections already exist or they don’t even know that they are necessary. We found in the survey that indicated 83 percent of Kentuckians support Fairness, that the majority also have no idea that this type of discrimination is still legal in most of Kentucky," he says.
