Advocates press again for bill banning LGBT discrimination

JEFFERSON CITY — For gay rights advocates in the Ozarks and throughout Missouri there is no special trick to passing controversial non-discrimination legislation, just perseverance.

Advocates have been lobbying for legislation akin to the Missouri Nondiscrimination Act, also known as MONA, since 1998. The bill would give gays, lesbians and transgender people in Missouri protections against workplace and housing discrimination, said Katie Stuckenschneider, communications director for PROMO, a statewide gay rights advocacy organization. The legislation provides nearly identical protections to those included in the city ordinance Springfield overturned last spring.

In 2013, the Senate passed MONA but there was not time left in the session for it to be taken up by the House. That was the furthest the bill ever progressed through the Missouri General Assembly. Steph Perkins, interim director for PROMO, said he is optimistic every legislative session that lawmakers will pass MONA despite its past defeats.

"We know that the support is there — it's just about getting it lined up in the right way. We have really good relationships in the legislature with both Democrats and Republicans, who see this as an important issue not only for individuals in their district but also an economic issue," said Perkins, who lives in Springfield.

Perkins said protecting people against discrimination in their workplaces is an economic issue because gay and transgender people have left Missouri to find work elsewhere for fear of being discriminated against. Perkins said those are people who Missouri paid to educate and many of them have skill sets that would benefit communities in the Show Me State.

Currently, it is not against state law to fire someone for being gay or to deny them housing. Perkins said there are some federal housing and workplace protections currently in place but they offer only "pockets of protections" that leave many people exposed.

In a press release, PROMO said the MONA legislation could affect more than 160,000 LGBT adults in Missouri. The release attributes that figure to the Williams Institute, a think tank based out of the UCLA School of Law that conducts research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.

People in the Ozarks are indeed fired, denied promotions or not hired at all because of their sexuality, said Krista Moncado, executive director with the the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of the Ozarks, also known as GLO.

"We know that does happen in the area," she said, noting she fields calls when those people call the GLO office.

Moncado said she works with students at GLO and many of them want to go to college and not return to the Ozarks because they have been discriminated, harassed or teased by people in their towns or even in their own family.

"I think that's very sad," Moncado said, because the Ozarks would have a lot to offer those kids as adults. She said it is also sad for communities to lose those talented people.

PROMO is endorsing two versions of MONA , including a House and a Senate bill. Today the Senate Committee on Progress and Development is scheduled to hold a hearing on the Senate version of the bill at 2 p.m.

Steve Urie of Joplin said he is going to testify in favor of the bill. Now retired, Urie, 66, said he twice left jobs because of discrimination he received for being gay. In 2005, he was fired from his job as a nursing administrator at a healthcare facility in Joplin, he said, for after his employer charged him with "bringing homosexuality into the workplace."

Then in 2007, Urie said he quit another job he had as a nursing administrator after his employer refused to look into his complaints that workers at the facility were harassing him. Urie said the harassment included urinating on his car and drawing lewd depictions of him in a bathroom stall.

Urie said the Missourians should realize the issue affects someone they know.

"What I want them (lawmakers) to take away from this is we are way past the point where we need a change," Urie said.

After an up and down year in 2015 for gay rights advocates in Springfield — it was a year in which voters overturned the city's non-discrimination law and in which the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in all states — seeing MONA enacted into law would be a big victory, said Johnda Boyce, a board member for PFLAG of the Ozarks. The organization is made up of parents, families and friends of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

"MONA is necessary for Missouri to jump into the current century," Boyce said.

A PFLAG member from Springfield will run in next year's election. Democrat Jeff Munzinger, will challenge Republican incumbent Rep. Kevin Austin in the next year for the 136th District, which covers the city’s southeast side. Munzinger said passing MONA is one of his chief aims.

Austin told the News-Leader in October that he has never taken a vote on that legislation, but he would most likely oppose it. “Right now I would probably be against that. I would not be looking to expand protected classes at this time,” Austin said in October.

MONA will have a long way to go to become law. Munzinger said while it has previously passed in the Senate it has faced more hostility in the House.

Rep. Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, said he's never had an opportunity to vote on the bill. It has always died in a committee before making it to the House floor, Haahr said.

Haahr said he's not sure how he would vote on the legislation. Like Austin, Haahr said he has reservations about "expanding the protected class," but said he's not sure he would vote against it either.

If the bill were to pass through the legislature, Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon has spoken his support for the legislation.

Moncado, the executive director for GLO, said despite the legislative hurdles before it that MONA will make its way into statute.

"I think as we move along with history, things have moved toward being more open and accepting," she said.