Republican leaders in Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania on Tuesday repealed the borough's LGBTQ protections
ordinance approved in October.
The move makes Chambersburg the first
municipality in Pennsylvania to repeal such an ordinance.
According to Penn
Live, the ordinance was repealed with a 7-3
Republican-majority vote.
The ordinance, which prohibits
discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and
ethnicity in housing, employment, and public accommodations, was
approved in October, when Democrats controlled the chamber.
Pennsylvania is among the 27 states
lacking statewide LGBTQ protections.
Opposition to the ordinance was led by
Borough Council President Allen Coffman, a Republican, who said that
the ordinance was ineffective because it had “no teeth.”
“All of us that ran in this election
to be on council, we think we got a mandate from the people,” he
said last week. “People we talked to when we were campaigning
did not like this ordinance at all.”
“There are no penalties, not fines,”
he said. “There’s nothing that the ordinance can make someone do.
The most they can hope for is that the committee request the two
parties to sit down with a counselor or mediator and talk about it.
Quite frankly there is nothing that compels them to. There’s no
teeth in this.”
Alice Elia, the former Chambersburg
borough council president and a Democrat, called repeal of the
ordinance a “political move.”
“I don't know of any reasons for
repealing it other than a political move,” she said. “This issue
should not be politicized. It's an issue of justice and having equal
protection for everybody in our community. It shouldn't be a
political or a Democratic or Republican issue. This should be
something we are all concerned about.”