News Release
For Immediate Release: January 11, 2011
Contact: Diane Gramley 1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355
Haverford Township Makes Wrong Step
(Philadelphia) — In Haverford Township the so-called anti-discrimination ordinance was taken off the table and reconsidered Monday night. By a vote of 5-3 with one abstention it will advance to the next step. Questions still remain unanswered. The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a statewide pro-family group, asked questions in an e-mail sent to each commissioner on November 8th and again on January 10th before the meeting. Those questions included:
1.) Where is the evidence that there is wide spread discrimination against homosexuals, bisexuals and transgenders in Haverford Township?
2.) Can they not find a job?
3.) Can they not rent or buy a home?
4.) Are they not permitted in restaurants or stores?
“These questions have not been answered; nor will they be, simply because a truthful answer to each of those questions would show homosexuals find jobs, rent and buy homes, shop in stores and eat in restaurants in Haverford Township. The discrimination they claim to suffer cannot be substantiated thus there is no need for this ordinance,” Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA remarked.
State Senator Daylin Leach again attended this meeting as he did in December to show support for the ordinance. The AFA of PA hopes he has become educated on the “locker room crises” and real world consequences of passing these ordinances as he did not provide an accurate picture on December 13th. But he acknowledged the purpose of ‘encouraging’ these local municipalities to pass these ordinances is to put pressure on the state legislature to add ‘sexual orientation or gender identity or expression’ to the PA Human Relations Act.
Stephen Glassman, openly homosexual chairman of the PA Human Relations Commission, was there touting the need for the ordinance. However, he failed to mention that his Commission reported that there were only 29 bias related incidents based on “gay/lesbian” out of the 374 which occurred throughout Pennsylvania in 2008-2009. The idea of a Haverford Township ordinance was first proposed in mid-October by a resident who identifies as homosexual, who had a rumor circulated about him 15-20 years ago and was verbally harassed last summer; is Stephen Glassman rushing the township to pass this ordinance and if so, why?
Some are saying passage of the ordinance will cost nothing, but on July 14, 2010 Stephen Glassman told Doylestown Borough as they considered a similar ordinance, they “will not be overwhelmed with cases, but each case can take many, many hours to investigate.” He was suggesting the council might want to hire someone to help residents file complaints and investigate them. He said council could expect to pay $30,000 for a part-time employee and $60,000 for a full-time employee, plus benefits, mileage and office supplies. So which is it – a local commission that costs nothing or one that costs up to $60,000?
In response to Hatboro Mayor Norman Hawkes vetoing their human relations ordinance last month, Lee Carpenter an Assistant Law Professor at Temple University, and the former Legal Director of Equality Advocates of Pennsylvania said, “There are definitely smaller municipalities that have passed these ordinances that have really limited, frankly, ability to enforce them. They just don’t have the kind of staff on hand to do the kinds of investigations that need to be done. So I do think that the mayor does make a point, that in order to give these ordinances any teeth at all, there have to be significant resources directed to them.”
“Increasingly we see homosexual activists approach ‘friendly’ local elected officials to pull their victim card and cry discrimination even though no stories of real discrimination exist. Too many times the facts and real world consequences are ignored, simply so homosexuals can further their efforts to use the force of law to demand that all Pennsylvanians celebrate their lifestyle. We hope that this will not be the case in Haverford Township,” noted Gramley.
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