Rep. Glen Casada filed his promised state legislation Monday to block a proposed ordinance that would prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians by companies that do business with Metro Nashville government.
“It’s up to the local business to decide what they will and will not do,” Casada, R-College Grove, told The City Paper in January of his bill, which then was in the drafting stage. “The local government won’t be able to implement their morality on our local businesses.”
Casada’s legislation bars any Tennessee city from adopting anti-discrimination employment policies that protect classes other than those named under the federal Civil Rights Act. That law bans discrimination against workers based on race, creed, color, religion, sex, age or national origin.
Metro Council members Mike Jameson, Jamie Hollin and Erica Gilmore want to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of Nashville’s protected classes. Their bill goes before the Metro Council on Feb. 15. It was filed after Belmont University came under fire over the departure of women’s soccer coach Lisa Howe, who revealed she and her same-sex partner are having a child.