For Immediate Release:  February 17, 2010
Contact:  Diane Gramley  1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355

PA Human Relations Commission Failed in Gettysburg Case, Where was Chairman Stephen Glassman?

(Harrisburg) –  Earlier this month members of the PA Human Relations Commission (PHRC) met with Gettysburg business owners, the Gettysburg Area Retail Merchants Association, the Gettysburg-Adams Chamber of Commerce and the Gettysburg Convention and Visitors Bureau.  The round table discussion, hosted by State Rep. Dan Moul, was to address the mounting number of Americans With Disabilities Act complaints filed against downtown Gettysburg businesses who face mounting legal costs and the possibility of forced closure.  The PHRC acknowledged they had failed to follow through on their responsibility to handle the complaints, filed two years ago, in a timely fashion.  In a faxed statement to Congressman Todd Russell Platts, State Senator Richard Alloway, State Representative Dan Maul, the Borough of Gettysburg, and others involved, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a statewide pro-family group, questioned the priorities of Stephen Glassman, the Chairman of the PA Human Relations Commission.

“Glassman has been traveling the state since he became chairman of the PA Human Relations Commission several years ago pushing his own agenda.  Apparently he has been too busy pushing state and local municipalities to change their laws to include ‘actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity’ that he has neglected his Commission’s legal responsibilities which have nothing to do with the normalization of homosexuality,” noted Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

The fax included information about Glassman’s efforts and questioned his priorities.  Some of that information included him speaking at homosexual activists’ rallies and seminars working to get sexual orientation and gender identity language added to the PA Human Relations Act and others to oppose the Marriage Protection Amendment.   His efforts to travel the state to ‘encourage’ local municipalities to add the sexual orientation language to their ordinances was also exposed, as well as his participation in ‘gay’ pride parades and same-sex commitment ceremonies.

“Has Glassman failed to fulfill his duties as the chairman of the PA Human Relations Commission while ignoring the blight of some like the business owners in Gettysburg?  The record seems to speak for itself,” Gramley further stated.

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