Columbus City Council votes to create new LGBTQ+ affairs commission

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Columbus City Council took the next steps last week to approve the creation of a new LGBTQ+ affairs commission.

Introduced by Council President Shannon Hardin, the legislation passed 9-0 on July 14 to establish an advisory commission representing the city's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. The commission will be made up of 13 members serving staggered three-year terms, with six appointed by council, six by the mayor and one chosen jointly. Watch a previous NBC4 report on the commission in the video player above.

Densil Porteous, executive director of Stonewall Columbus, celebrated council's approval of the commission as "a resounding recognition of our community's visibility, our vibrancy, and our ongoing need for structural support."

"In a time when queer and trans people, especially trans youth, are facing renewed attacks across the nation, local action matters. Representation matters," Porteous said in a statement. "To be clear: this is not the end of the work. It's a new beginning. A foundation on which we will continue to build."

The unanimous vote marked a historic moment for council, which, more than 40 years ago in 1984, struck down a proposal that would've expanded discrimination protections to include sexual orientation. To demonstrate the city's progress toward inclusivity, Harden played a video from that 1984 meeting, which showed speakers decrying gay people as "not made" by God and "homosexuality" as "an unclean, unsanitary practice."

While Columbus later enacted discrimination protections for the LGBTQ+ community, Hardin said he showed the clip because "people that forget their history are doomed to repeat it." Harden serves as the council's first openly-gay president and announced the commission in June for LGBTQ+ Pride month.

"It seems that too many of us have forgotten our history and, at the state and federal level right now, we are repeating demonizing people just for who they are," Hardin said during the July meeting. "There is still work to be done and there's still fights to be had and I'm proud to put this legislation forward."

The commission comes as many institutions are withdrawing their support for the LGBTQ+ community. Ohio State University, Ohio University, the University of Cincinnati and others have shuttered their LGBTQ+ programming to comply with state and federal legislation eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Large corporations operating in Ohio, including Walmart and Nissan, rolled back their sponsorships of the Columbus Pride march and festival.

Ohio's Statehouse has also passed or advanced a series of legislation opponents deem "anti-LGBTQ+," like a provision in the state budget a provision in the state budget defining gender as two sexes, a law banning certain healthcare for trans youth, and a bill to celebrate "Natural Family Month." Other directives include separating bathrooms based on students' "biological sex," and a proposal that LGBTQ+ advocates say will outlaw drag queen shows in public.

Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla argued anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric spurred from these and other measures is why the commission is needed.

"At a time when people are literally fighting for their existence, and we have a national administration that makes it harder for us to stand for our people, this is a way for us to enshrine a group of people that will always have a seat at the table," Barroso de Padilla said during a July 10 hearing for the commission.

Dara Adkison, executive director of TransOhio, also spoke during the July 10 hearing and said, "We know that trans people and other minorities are being significantly targeted right now," given the more than 940 bills "targeting the trans community" proposed in state legislatures nationwide, 118 of which have passed.

"These laws are targeting our ability to exist in public, to get an education, to have identity documents, to get healthcare, to use the bathroom," Adkison said. "Knowing that any community that is going to enshrine a commission, to bring voices to the table, is hopefully going to help dissuade the greenlit discrimination, fear, and stress that the current legislature is proposing."

Columbus' commission marks the second in Ohio after Cincinnati City Council voted in March to create an LGBTQ+ commission.