Covington may become Kentucky’s fifth local government to enact special protections for homosexuals if the city commission follows a recommendation made on January 21, by the Covington Human Rights Commission (CHRC). Don Smith, president of the CHRC, said the proposed change would extend basic protection to homosexuals in housing, employment and public accommodations.

A similar ordinance is on the books in Louisville and Lexington. Henderson rescinded its ordinance in 2001. "I just try to remind everyone this is a human rights ordinance--it is not a gay rights ordinance," Smith said.

David Miller, vice president of the Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values (CCV) disagrees. "This is not a civil rights issue. It is a sexual issue," Miller said. "This is about codifying people’s private sexual behavior."

Covington’s decision on the gay rights proposal boils down to five City Commission votes--votes that appear uncertain since the commissioners are reluctant to take sides. "I think this is a human rights issue," Commissioner Jerry Bamberger said. "I’m going to strongly consider what my constituents say."

Commissioner Alex Edmondson said he was going to "take a wait-and-see approach. It's going to be a battle between the far right and the far left. And somewhere in the middle, hopefully, we can come to a compromise."
Mayor Butch Callery said he doesn’t have any comments. "I haven’t seen it... I have no problem discussing it," Callery said. The only concern I have is I don’t want this to be a divisive thing." But the issue has been nothing but divisive since "Fairness Ordinances" were proposed in other Kentucky cities in 1999. "The fairness issue was the most divisive thing that happened to Henderson in the last 60 years," said Robby Mills, former mayor pro-tem. Mills says if they don’t want to divide their community they should not give into the political demands made by homosexual activists.

Miller said the proposed ordinance is part of a larger political strategy by homosexual activists. "The homosexual subculture wants to change our culture," Miller said. "They want us to approve of their immoral, unnatural and very unhealthy behavior." CCV distributed hundreds of flyers to Covington citizens saying that giving legal status to homosexuals is government-endorsed approval of their lifestyle.

Northern Kentucky Fairness Alliance (NKFA) member Susie Bookser insisted there is no agenda behind the proposal. "There really is no basis for saying this is part of the gay agenda," she said. "This was not at all initiated by the gay community. This was completely initiated by people on the Human Rights Commission."

However, Cindy Schroeder of the Cincinnati Enquirer reported on June 10 of last year: "Charles D. King of Covington, a member of the alliance, said members are working with the Covington Human Rights Commission." The article went on to say, "one of the Northern Kentucky Fairness Alliance's first goals is lobbying to expand legal protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people."

. Besides approaching the HRC, Bookser and the NKFA canvassed Covington neighborhoods between June and October in order to gauge public support for such an ordinance. Bookser said over half of the people they contacted supported it. Critics are questioning not only her credibility, but also why such an ordinance is needed in the first place. Commissioner Jerry Bamberger says he is not aware of any discrimination complaints filed by homosexuals in Covington, and Henderson’s Mills noted that in the 18-month life of Henderson’s Fairness Ordinance, not one complaint was made.

The Northern Kentucky Fairness Alliance is less than a year old, and is part of a network of eight other Kentucky-based Fairness Alliances, and has key friends in state government. State Senator Ernesto Scorsone, (D-Lexington) spoke at an Alliance fund-raiser on April 28, 2002. Scorsone, a leading homosexual rights proponent in the state legislature, is credited with overturning Kentucky’s sodomy laws.

The Kentucky Fairness Alliance (KFA)--parent of the NKFA, received $4,800 in grants in 2001 and 2002 from the Washington D.C-based homosexual rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign. KFA also received a $60,000 grant in 2002 from the Gill Foundation and a $30,000 grant from the Veatch Foundation, which is associated with the Unitarian Universalist Church.

Besides sprouting "Fairness Alliances" across the Commonwealth in recent years, homosexual activists have been instrumental in resurrecting dormant HRC’s, which began in the 1960s and continued in the 1970s to protect Civil Rights for blacks and other minorities. Now, critics say many of the HRC’s are being hijacked by homosexual activists.

Miller said he objected to homosexuals being given preferential status equal to those whose gender, skin color or handicap puts them at a disadvantage in society. "Laws should be based on objective standards, not subjective feelings," Miller said.