The Oklahoma Senate killed a measure Thursday to stop cities from offering enhanced anti-discrimination protections.
Senate Bill 694 would limit employment, housing and public accommodations protections to those classes in state law: race, color, national origin, sex, religion, creed, age, disability or genetic information. Cities and other local governments would not be able to offer such protections based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The measure would also have eliminated any such rules on the books, such as Tulsa’s 2015 fair housing ordinance that offers protections to the LGBTQ community.
Bill author Joshua Brecheen framed the matter as one of religious freedom.
"We are facing, as a culture this decision: Is the First Amendment going to be subordinate to sexual behavior?" Brecheen said.
Sen. Kevin Matthews of Tulsa didn’t like what that suggested.
"It's very disappointing to me when discrimination is being mentioned in the same breath as choice," Matthews said. "I did not choose to be African-American. I was born that way, and whether people are nice to me when they discriminate ... does not matter."
In a committee hearing on SB694 last month, Brecheen said business owners want the ability to "object to something but do it in a loving manner and it not be categorized as discrimination."
Former Tuttle Mayor and Republican freshman Sen. Lonnie Paxton called the measure a bad bill for the Senate, for the state and for the future.
"For the last summer and fall, I spent that time knocking doors of thousands of Oklahoma citizens. I never had one person open the door and say, 'Pass a bill like this,'" Paxton said. "They said fix our economy. Fix our schools. Fix our state."
Brecheen and other supporters of the bill also said it would address business concerns presented by a patchwork of differing regulations.
SB694 failed 18–25 and will not be revisited this session, as a motion to reconsider it also failed.
