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The Minnesota legislature is considering a bill which would expand the state human Rights Act to include gays and lesbians. And it appears that the bill has a reasonable chance to pass this year. It's already cleared the Judiciary Committees in both houses of the legislature. And in both instances, the bill was approved by relatively wide margins. Today, we're going to talk about what's in the bill and what would happen if it passed.

Joining us here in the studio is a key supporter, Minneapolis DFL State Senator Allan Spear. And also joining us, State Senator Tom Neville, an IR are from Northfield who opposes the bill. Gentlemen, thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. Senator Spear, let's start with you. Would you explain what would happen here if this becomes law?

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, what would happen would be that sexual orientation would be one of the categories protected under the state human rights law. So that if an individual were discriminated against on the basis of their sexual or affectual orientation in housing or employment, public services, public accommodations, access to education, they would have a right to file a grievance with the State Department of Human Rights and to claim that they have been discriminated against.

That would then be investigated. There would be a finding as to whether there was merit to the complaint, and the proceedings would go from there. This is protection that already exists in the city of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by ordinance, but does not exist anywhere else in the state. Currently, a gay or lesbian person who faces discrimination has no recourse anywhere in the state outside of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. And we think that this should be extended statewide, which is what this would do.

INTERVIEWER: Senator Neville, it sounds reasonable. But you have some misgivings?

TOM NEVILLE: Well, I do. I am going to vote against the bill. But I guess I want people to know that this isn't particularly a cause for me. I don't think I'm on a crusade by opposing this legislation. And I might also add, I'm not really an expert on the legislation either, but I have done a lot of reading on it.

And I guess I don't buy the argument that this legislation is needed. I think it will oppress other people by having behavioral conduct that some people find objectionable, imposed upon them, impinge upon their beliefs and their right of association. And I guess overall, I think that it's just another assault on the disintegration of the family, which I see occurring more and more in Minnesota. And I think that we can get into it a bit more later. But as a basic premise, I just don't accept that it's an innate or immutable characteristic. I think it's behavioral-based.

INTERVIEWER: Senator Spear, we hear that a lot now. Matter of fact, in preparation for this program, I talked with the program director over at the University of Minnesota Human Sexuality Program. But he said basically that the scientific evidence is all over the map, and there really is no proof one way or the other as to how this works. But what about the argument that this essentially moves behavioral characteristic into one of those protected classes that people really have no control over? Race--

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, let me answer that in a number of ways. First of all, I think it has to be clear that this legislation does not protect someone who behaves in an objectionable way on the job. So we're not talking about behavior on the job at all. Unwanted sexual advance, whether it be heterosexual or homosexual, is unjustified and should be grounds for discipline or dismissal on the job. There's just no quarrel with that. So we're not talking about any kind of behavior on the job. We are talking about a person's right to be who they are and to live with whom they want or whom they love in their personal life.

Now as far as whether this whole issue of whether this is an acquired or an innate characteristic, the scientific evidence may be inconclusive on the issue of innateness. But I think that's beside the point. I think what the scientific evidence does very clearly state is that one sexual orientation, be it homosexual or heterosexual, is determined either at birth or very early in life.

If it's not innate, it's something that is acquired and something that a person develops when they're still very, very young. And people do not choose whether to be heterosexual or homosexual. When people ask me about that, usually if they're heterosexual, I usually turn the question around and say, did you at some point choose to be heterosexual? And they'll say, well, no, of course not. That's just what I am. And of course, I say the same thing. That's just what I am. I happen to be homosexual. That's what I've always been. And I never made a conscious choice. I did make choices.

Gay people have to make choices as to how they want to live their lives, whether they want to hide what they are or whether they want to be open about what they are. And an increasing number of us are choosing the latter to be open. But when we choose to be open about our sexual orientation, that does not mean that we have chosen to be gay. That's something we are. The decision is as to how we want to present ourselves and how we want to live our lives within that context.

INTERVIEWER: Senator Neville, what about this issue of choice? Choice of lifestyle?

TOM NEVILLE: Well, I think that the concession, if you want to call it that, that Allan just made, that there isn't really good scientific, replicable scientific data that suggests it's innate or genetic and that it could be learned at an early age suggests that it can be unlearned. Now, I know that that's an issue that gay and lesbians will take issue with, but there are numerous psychologists and scientists who, in the course of their therapy, have been able to help many people who practice homosexual conduct, to change that conduct. It's a behavior that with appropriate desire to change and appropriate help and therapy, a person can change.

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, no reputable, Tom. No reputable psychologist, psychiatrist or psychologist is trying to change sexual orientation these days. That's something of a generation ago. There are people out there, they're mostly people who come from a religious rather than a scientific background who are trying to do that. And I think it's a cruel hoax that they are perpetrating.

The American Psychiatric Association almost 20 years ago now took homosexuality off the list of psychological disorders. And that organization, American Psychiatric, American Psychological, all the major professional organizations have made it very clear that while there may be disorders that grow out of one's inability to adjust to one's sexual orientation, that sexual orientation is not a disorder one way or the other, and that a reputable psychiatrist or psychologist does not try to change someone from being homosexual to heterosexual. It doesn't work.

INTERVIEWER: I want to get to some phone calls now. But before we do that, a quick reading from both of you. What's going to happen with this legislation? It kind of cruised through the Judiciary Committees.

ALLAN SPEAR: It's going to be close, much closer on the floors than it was in those committees.

TOM NEVILLE: I think the makeup of the committees made the vote there very predictable. I suspect that the vote or the bill won't be taken up unless Allan's pretty sure of his count at the time that he takes it up. But I think it will be very close.

INTERVIEWER: Let's go to our callers. Those of you just tuning in, State Senators Alan Spear and Tom Neville have joined us for a discussion about a bill which would expand the State Human Rights Act so that it would cover gays and lesbians in the state of Minnesota. And it's always been a pretty contentious issue and promises to be-- well, it should be an interesting debate at the legislature again this year.

Number of callers are on the lines with questions and comments. And let's begin with you. Hello, you're on Minnesota Public Radio.

AUDIENCE: Yes, thank you. I wanted to make the comment that our nation was founded on the promise that there should be no such thing as a second class citizen. And I'm very proud that we're on the brink of moving further towards that goal this day. And I just wanted to express my sorrow that any American should oppose such a move. I think it's hopelessly bigoted, and I really hope this passes. Thank you.

INTERVIEWER: I have to ask you, both of you. Now, people who aren't specifically covered, listed in this act, is it OK to discriminate against them? Is that legal?

TOM NEVILLE: Yes. You mean if you have blue eyes? Yeah. We don't cover eye color. Let's take that. Of course, you can.

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, the thing, the thing to remember about the history of civil rights legislation is that civil rights legislation is necessary only because we live in an imperfect world and an imperfect society. It's legislation that is geared to provide a level playing field, equal opportunity. It's not special privilege.

And so what we have done in drafting civil rights legislation is to list those categories in which there have been historically patterns of discrimination, so that we list race, and we list sex, and we list religion and nationality, because we all know that there have been historical patterns of discrimination. We don't list eye color even though it is legal to discriminate on the basis of eye color because no one does it. There's no historic pattern of discriminating against blue-eyed people or brown-eyed people.

So it seems to me then the test as to whether you want to include a category in human rights legislation is not whether it protects something that is innate or chosen. It is whether there has been historic pattern of discrimination. Religion is not an innate characteristic after all. It's something that we choose. But we protect it because there have been historic patterns of discrimination against people on the basis of their religion, and we as a society deem this to be improper. I submit that we now have adequate evidence that there has been a similar pattern with sexual orientation and that therefore, that's why it needs to be included.

TOM NEVILLE: Well, I don't really agree with everything that he said. As far as religion is concerned, the reason that is given special protection, and I do believe that when you put something in the human rights law, you are giving special protections to those classifications. But the reason religion is in there is because both the United States and the Minnesota Constitution elevate that type of behavior to protected status.

I think when we're looking at behavioral-based classifications, and I suppose you can argue that perhaps marital status, which is also included under our human rights law, is a behavioral-based classification. But when you're going to look at that type of behavior, if it isn't per se impermissible to include in the statute, I think it's a very valid thing for legislators and for citizens to say, is there also an element of moral fault involved in the conduct?

You know, it's not only has there been a pattern of discrimination, would it be based on arbitrary and irrational criteria. Has there been a history or a pattern of injury? But is this behavior something that we find morally objectionable or not? I think in this case, we have a criminal statute that's still on the books saying that the acts of sodomy are criminal conduct. It seems awful inconsistent to me that we would on the one hand say that those types of conduct and behavior are criminal, and on the other hand, say that people who profess openly to engage in that should be given special protected status.

ALLAN SPEAR: Well Tom, we do not, in Minnesota law, prohibit specifically any kind of homosexual behavior. Sodomy is a sexual activity that is pursued by both homosexuals and heterosexuals. And there are many heterosexuals who engage in sodomy. There are many homosexuals that don't. So it just is not accurate to say that homosexual behavior is something that is prohibited by Minnesota law. There's nothing in the law that says that.

INTERVIEWER: Lots of questions. And let's get to another caller. Hi. You're on Minnesota Public Radio.

AUDIENCE: Hello. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I have a question, a two-part question really. First directed to Senator Spear. And it plays to this theme that you just mentioned about the historical discrimination. To the average person in the public, where can you find out the facts or the information that this bill is attempting to address? For example, are there hundreds of people being dismissed in Minnesota every year because of their sexual orientation or being denied housing? What is the real problem we're trying to fix here?

INTERVIEWER: OK, that's question one. And number two.

AUDIENCE: Number two is a little bit about what the second order effects of such legislation might be. For example, because this calls for not denying job benefits based on sexual preference, which I think is meant to include both heterosexual and homosexual. Is this really the thin edge of the wedge, so to speak, to require employers to extend benefits to heterosexual as well as homosexual couples? Will this then lead to domestic partnership arrangements, homosexual marriage rights, et cetera, et cetera? So where does this stop after you start it with putting the sexual affiliation as a protected status in the legislation?

INTERVIEWER: OK. Senator Spear--

ALLAN SPEAR: Let me take on both of those questions. First of all, I think the best place to go to see evidence of patterns of discrimination is in the report of the Governor's Task Force on Gay and Lesbian Minnesotans. This task force was appointed by Governor Perpich, I think, in his last year in office. And the report, by the time the report was finished, Governor Perpich was no longer there. So it was submitted to Governor Carlson, and he has kept this task force going.

The task force on which I served, there were, I believe, 16 members of the task force that included a wide range of people, most of whom were not gay. And we went throughout the state, took testimony. And what the task force found was that. Particularly outside of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, there were indeed hundreds of people who were coming forward and talking about discrimination in jobs, talking about the inability to find appropriate housing. Talking about various kinds of harassment, which this bill does not directly address. Violence in some cases. So there's no doubt in my mind on the basis of what that task force discovered in talking about people throughout the state, the patterns of discrimination exist, and that report is available if the caller wants to read it.

INTERVIEWER: I think that's legit. Senator Neville, do you think there's enough of a pattern of discrimination against gays and lesbians to justify the legislation on that basis?

TOM NEVILLE: Well, no. I'm not convinced that there's been any sufficient showing of improper discrimination. First of all, it's important I think to know that to the extent that gay and lesbians claim that they have been subjected to violence, cruelty, harassment, threatening conduct, terroristic threats, all of that is certainly protected under our current criminal laws. I don't think anybody, any citizen has a right to perpetuate violence on anybody else, no matter what their behavior is.

You know, in my other life, I'm a public defender. I defend criminals charged with pretty bad crimes. I'm always able to draw that bright line between respect for the individual and the conduct that I'm defending him for, whether that be rape, or assault, or murder.

But I think in this particular case, other types of behavior that the gay community is seeking to obtain protection for under this law. It's appropriate for people to exercise their rights to say, I don't want to associate with people who openly advocate that lifestyle as being a normal and legitimate lifestyle.

ALLAN SPEAR: So what you're saying, Tom, is that it's perfectly all right for a person to say, I won't hire someone for a job that they're perfectly capable of doing, or I won't give somebody a place to live despite the fact that there are every reason to believe that they're model tenants just because of what they happen to be.

TOM NEVILLE: Well, first of all, I'm not convinced that type of discrimination is actually occurring.

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, it is. It definitely is.

TOM NEVILLE: But let me give you an example. I have a Lutheran minister who lives not far from me. Retired, he's about 80 years old and he owns a duplex. Now under this bill, there would be some exceptions for single family houses. But if a person came to him and he was, let's say it was a man dressed as a woman and said, I'm a crossdresser and I'm actively homosexual, that Lutheran minister would really be acting against his conscience to let a person live in the other half of this duplex.

Or let's say that I'm an attorney in a very small town in greater Minnesota in a very conservative rural area, and I'm looking to hire another lawyer, who openly says to me, I'm gay, and I'm not going to hide it. I'm going to go out in this community and tell everybody and be proud of it. That would ruin my business. I mean, whether I wanted nothing that I would do to discriminate against that person, but if I hired him, I might not have any legal clients in my office anymore. So there are other factors that are involved when you're dealing with behavior.

INTERVIEWER: Let's move on to the secondary effects that the gentleman, the caller was interested in as well. Is this in fact the foot in the door? Can we expect if this passes, becomes state law, pretty soon there will be an effort to pass some kind of affirmative action, legislation, quotas, that sort of thing?

ALLAN SPEAR: Affirmative action is something that so far as I'm aware, gay and lesbian groups have never advocated anywhere in the United States. First of all, it would be almost impossible to implement affirmative action for gay men and lesbians because many gay men and lesbians do not identify themselves as such. And therefore, there would be absolutely no way that you would be able to implement affirmative action programs. You'd have no way of knowing in many cases, whether the person you hired was gay or lesbian or not. So that's not part of this bill. It never has been. It has never been suggested anywhere. And of course, inclusion in a human rights law does not imply inclusion in affirmative action programs.

The other things that were mentioned were domestic partners and gay marriage. There are now seven states that have this kind of legislation. The city of Minneapolis has had it for 20 years. No one has ever suggested that simply having this legislation on the books allows domestic partner benefits or gay and lesbian marriages.

Gay and lesbian marriages are not allowed by law in the state of Minnesota. I mean, that's very explicit in the law. And so it would require a change of the law. Any other kind of action such as was suggested, like domestic partners or the legalization of gay and lesbian marriages, would require further legislative action. There's nothing to suggest that the Minnesota State legislature is even close to doing those things.

So no one obviously can predict with certainty what 50 or 100 years from now a legislature might do. But there's certainly nothing in this particular legislation that would open the way for affirmative action, for legalization of gay or lesbian marriages, or for domestic partner benefits.

INTERVIEWER: Fair reading, as far as you know, Senator Neville?

TOM NEVILLE: Well, with one slight difference of interpretation, I think it's possible that under the language of this bill where you can't discriminate on the basis of public service, that it could be argued that people can go into a judge in any courthouse. And if that's a service that the state offers its citizens to the extent that it's inconsistent with other laws, I'm sure that it would be challenged and that the basis for the challenge would then be that we would be discriminating against gays and lesbians on the basis of public service, where other heterosexual men and women of different sex can go into the courthouse and get married by a judge. So I think that the bill would be a wedge in the door. I'm concerned that it would ultimately lead to same sex marriages, which I believe is another assault on the traditional family.

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, it says specifically in the marriage law that marriage can occur only between a man and a woman. I don't know what can be clearer than that.

TOM NEVILLE: I'm not disputing that. But what I'm saying is is that we would now be passing a law that could be used as ammunition to invalidate that statute, to go in and challenge it.

INTERVIEWER: We are talking this hour about proposal to expand the State Human Rights Act in Minnesota to include gays and lesbians. Our guest today, Minneapolis State Senator Allan Spear, who supports the legislation, and IR State Senator Thom Neville, who opposes it. Another caller is on the line. Hello. Your question?

AUDIENCE: Hi. Hello.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, go ahead.

AUDIENCE: OK. I just have a couple of comments to make, if you don't mind. I'm not sure historical discrimination makes much sense as a standard here because I mean, throughout history, there have been a lot of groups that have been discriminated against that we wouldn't want to ban discrimination against, I don't think. Obese people have been discriminated against throughout history. Unintelligent people have been short. People have been unattractive. People have been-- I mean, we're obviously not going to have laws to ban all types of discrimination or we're not going to have any kind of free society at all.

And the second question, the second comment I'd like to make a few minutes ago, a caller called in and said that our nation was founded on the notion that there should be no second class citizens and that anyone who opposes a law like this is necessarily a bigot. That is absolutely ridiculous. Our nation was founded on the notion of individual liberty.

Now it's obvious that the government cannot discriminate against certain classes via the Equal Protection Clause, but our nation was founded on the notion that individuals should be allowed to contract with people that they want to without interference from the government. And yes, if I own a business and I don't want to hire a gay person or a Black person for that matter, or a woman, I should have the right to do so. It's my private property, and that's the kind of individual liberty that our nation was founded on, and I wish more politicians would be willing to acknowledge that.

INTERVIEWER: OK. Where does the person's private rights end and the public responsibility begin? I mean, isn't that--

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, this caller is suggesting, I guess, that we repeal all human rights laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and sex. He believes he has a right to discriminate in hiring on against a Black person or a woman. Our society has clearly moved beyond that. You know, I give this caller the advantage, the credit for at least being consistent. But our society has rejected that. There's no doubt that we have long since moved past the position where we think it's all right for people to discriminate on the basis of race.

INTERVIEWER: Isn't it possible though that the act in this instance will be broadened so much over the years that it becomes in a way kind of meaningless?

TOM NEVILLE: I think that clearly is a threat. We're very, very careful. In Minnesota anyway, when we open up that human rights law to anything other than innate characteristics, things over which people have no ability to change in themselves. A person has no choice over whether they're born Black or White or man or woman or German or Norwegian. But most people do have some ability to control their conduct and their behavior.

I think that if we do pass this law, there is a substantial risk that in the future other groups will come in. For example, in the privacy of bedrooms, people commit incest today. That's against the law too. And I suppose that we could very easily say that that's something that, or they could argue that that's something that government has no right to discriminate against them on.

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, first of all, this whole issue of something being an innate characteristic. I mean, Tom conceded a few minutes ago, we have religion, not an innate characteristic. We have marital status, not an innate characteristic. We added family status a few years ago. So that in many kinds of housing, it is illegal to discriminate against people who have children, families with children. That's not an innate characteristic.

Sexual orientation may indeed be an innate characteristic, . But I don't think that whether it is or not ought to be the test of whether it's included in this. And I really do resent the notion of equating one sexual orientation with things like incest and things that are clearly criminal behavior. I mean, as a gay man and many of the gay people I know lives that I think are as upright and moral as any heterosexuals I know.

There are people of both sexual orientations who live moral and immoral lives. I know many heterosexual people who are promiscuous. Many may think that's immoral. I know many heterosexual people who are unfaithful in their marriages. And yet we're not suggesting that these people ought to be denied the right to a job. I know many homosexual people who have been in faithful, monogamous relationships for 20, 30, 40 years, is that immoral behavior? I don't think most people in our society believe it is.

INTERVIEWER: One question though, Senator. You know, for people who are in their religion, you know, it's kind of a fundamental belief in their mind that being a homosexual is immoral. And so on. The law would require those people to hire homosexuals, right?

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, we do have an exemption for churches and religious organizations, so that we're not requiring. And we could not constitutionally require a church, for example, that believes homosexuality is a sin, to hire a gay minister, or a gay pastor, or a gay priest. That's clearly exempted. Churches who would be hiring a Sunday school teacher or a religious school teacher, somebody that's involved in the promulgation of those religious doctrines, they are exempt from this.

But an individual who has a secular business but who has deeply held religious beliefs, yes, they would be covered. I mean, there are people who believe that in their heart of hearts that Black people are inferior, and yet we don't let them discriminate. They can believe what they want. People can believe what they want.

But we do, I think, as a society, have the right to insist that when a job is open to the public, when a business is open to the public, when you offer up housing to the public, that you should offer that to people on a non-discriminatory basis.

INTERVIEWER: Sounds reasonable, Senator Neville.

TOM NEVILLE: Well, I think I've really covered that already. There isn't too much more I can add except that when you're Black, you can't change that. And your behavior should be judged based on the behavior itself. You cannot say that any person's conduct or behavior is unhealthy, or objectionable, or immoral if people want to use that term, just because a person is Black, or a woman, or of a different race. We have a right though to distinguish those types of characteristics from behavioral characteristics.

INTERVIEWER: Now the listeners on the line with a question. Hello, you're on Minnesota Public Radio.

AUDIENCE: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, go ahead.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, I think it's outrageous for this IR Senator to be putting on this behavioral choice issue. If he really wants to be consistent in logic and ethical, then delete the categories of creed, religion, status with regard to public assistance, and familial status from the current statute. Otherwise, you're in a moral double bind.

Secondly, it's outrageous for him to suggest that there is any evidence in the behavioral and social science literature to support his allegation that the enactment of statutes or amendments to statutes, such as this or ordinances such as exist in Minneapolis or Saint Paul and other states or cities has had any deteriorative impact on the so-called family as he defines family, which itself is problematic.

And thirdly, as an attorney, if he would read the case law, he would know that in any instance where these statutes have attempted to be overthrown on the basis that such so-called special privileges as housing, employment and so forth are special privileges only for gays, the courts have ruled consistently on appeal that employment, et cetera are essential accesses to services, which all people need, regardless of their sexual or other orientation. And finally, this is not a gay rights statute. It protects employees who are heterosexual from being discriminated against by employers who are gay.

INTERVIEWER: OK. All right, Senator Neville, let me just focus on one of these, and that is the cities where the ordinances exist already, is there any evidence that the republic is coming to an end? It seems like things are rolling along nicely in the Twin City metropolitan area.

TOM NEVILLE: Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know. This isn't my cause. I'm not out there leading any crusade. I'm here to defend why I'm going to vote against the bill and based on the knowledge that I have. So I can't really comment on what has happened in Minneapolis.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think the act as it's currently written, is too broad, including with the inclusion of the marital status and these other things?

TOM NEVILLE: Well, I wasn't here again when the act was included, those particular items. But as I mentioned before, I'm not saying that behavioral-based classifications are per se or should be per se excluded from a human rights law. But I think that if we're going to include what people call behavioral-based classifications, such as marital status or familial status, that we can then appropriately ask the next question. Is it something that's morally objectionable or not? There is nothing morally objectionable per se about the fact that you have a family or the fact that you're married or single. This gay rights bill goes beyond that.

INTERVIEWER: Let's take another caller.

ALLAN SPEAR: That's very subjective though. I mean, there are obviously landlords, for example, who think that they don't want to have children. They may have good reasons. I don't want to rent with children. Children are destructive. Children are noisy. And yet we aren't allowing that with some exceptions in the state of Minnesota.

People have moral objections to all kinds of things. I mean, a generation ago, two generations ago, many of the same things that are being said today about gay and lesbian people were said about Black people. Society fortunately changed on that. But people said they had moral objections to being close to Black people. I mean, that was what the whole Southern Jim Crow system was based on.

And so I think that when you try to create a society built on justice, you cannot simply allow people-- People can have their own moral views, but people cannot impose those particular views upon others when they are making decisions that affect other people's lives.

TOM NEVILLE: Well, Allan, I just don't agree with that. Almost every criminal law that we make and many other civil laws have an element of morality in them. Just imagine the chaos that would exist if we pass laws and didn't have some fundamental or baseline moral basis upon which to make those laws.

ALLAN SPEAR: Because we're acting against people who have interfered with the rights of others. Gay and lesbian people are not interfering with the rights of others. Gay and lesbian people, we just want to be able to lead our lives. We want to be able to lead our lives in the same way that other people do. We're not trying to interfere with anybody else's rights. We're not murderers. We're not rapists.

We're not people who are going out there and interfering with other people's lives where moral judgment should be made against this. We want to lead our lives. Most of us lead them quietly and unobtrusively. But we also believe we have the right to have jobs. We have the right to have decent places to live. We have the right to have equal access to public service and accommodation. ALLAN SPEAR:

TOM NEVILLE: Well, you know, I certainly am not trying to argue, and I don't think many people who agree with me would argue that gays and lesbians are violent people, that you're entitled to less of across the board protection from all the laws and constitutional protections that every citizen in this country has. But I think that this law will be used not just as a shield but as a sword. It will be used to impose beliefs upon people who disagree.

I think that what's going to ultimately happen here is that this particular bill will be used by maybe not, Allan, I don't know if it'll be him, but it will be other activist members of the gay community to force acceptance of a lifestyle on others who find it objectionable.

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, it hasn't happened in other states. I mean, that gets to the second part of that last caller's statement. It hasn't happened in other states. We do have experience now with this. Wisconsin has had this kind of legislation for over a decade. So it has a considerable record of experience. And they haven't had great problems with it. No one's been forcing themselves upon anyone else. There have been a modest number of complaints, a less than 2% of all the human rights complaints in the state of Wisconsin over the last 10 years have been based on sexual orientation. Some have been upheld, some haven't. So there's been a relatively small number of complaints, but there has been an outlet there for people who face discrimination.

The city of Minneapolis has had this now for almost 20 years. There have been about 4% of the human rights complaints in the city of Minneapolis deal with sexual orientation. Some have been upheld, some haven't. But again, there's no record of somebody trying to impose their lifestyle upon another. So I think we can look at the record. We're not the first state to do this. We're not the first jurisdiction to do this, and it's worked well in those jurisdictions that have it.

INTERVIEWER: Let's take another caller. Hello. Your question?

AUDIENCE: Yes. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Calling from Blackduck, Minnesota. I'm an over 55-year-old businessman in this area and definitely non-homosexual. And I hadn't thought much of this problem until an ad appeared this Sunday in the Bemidji Pioneer in the Blackduck Paper, and they allowed this ad to be published unsigned. And when I talked to the editors on Monday, they admitted that in 23 years, they'd never allowed an unsigned ad before.

But this is what the ad said, and it really disturbed me. And for this reason, I think we probably need this legislation. It says in large letters, warning. Recently, Minnesota has been the target of yet another threat to its families, one that's every bit as dangerous as drug addiction, child abuse or teen pregnancy and abortion. It's Time Minnesota is the name of an anti-family homosexual advocacy group recently formed to lobby the Minnesota legislature for an amendment to Minnesota's Human Rights Code.

If a bill SF 444 sponsored by Senator Allan Spear of Minneapolis, becomes law, lesbians, gay men, bisexual, and transgender people would have special rights in provisions of education, provisions of public services and access to public accommodations. The chosen gay lifestyle does not deserve any special rights protection any more than prostitution, pedophilia, rape, or any unlawful act or behavior. It's essential that you contact your legislators and express your opposition. And then it lists the legislators from this area and the Governor Carlson.

So with this type of thing going on up in the outer Minnesota, I think that's a good reason why we probably need this. Although I'm not of that lifestyle, but I think they probably need the same protection as the minorities and racial or gender. Thank you very much.

INTERVIEWER: All right. Another caller? Hi. You're on Minnesota Public Radio.

AUDIENCE: Yes, hi. This is Rochester. I have two questions. The first question is I was wondering, when this bill becomes legislation, does this mean that gays and lesbians then acquire minority status as other minorities do, like in quota hiring and things like that?

And my second part of the question is even though statistics have shown that most male prisoners grow up in fatherless homes and females who succeed in careers dominated by men grew up with strong father-daughter relationships, why does Senator Spear insist on authoring and passing legislation alienating divorced fathers from their children? Isn't the enforcement of visitation a way to combat disappearing fathers and single mothers. Thank you.

INTERVIEWER: Does this have anything to do with--

ALLAN SPEAR: I'm not sure what the second issue has to do with anything. That's a different topic.

INTERVIEWER: Back to the business of what will this lead to affirmative action, hiring quotas?

ALLAN SPEAR: I think I've already answered that, and I think the answer is clearly no.

INTERVIEWER: Does it lay the legal groundwork for that?

ALLAN SPEAR: No. Because let's look at the groups that are currently covered in human rights legislation. Only a few of those have been singled out and are included in affirmative action programs. Minority status as it applies to affirmative action programs is commonly limited to racial minorities and to women. I don't know of any situation in which affirmative action programs have gone beyond that. Yet the human rights legislation is far broader.

And as we've already discussed, it includes things like religion and creed and so forth and so on. I'm not aware, for example, of any affirmative action program that says you have to have affirmative action for Catholics, or affirmative action for Jews, or affirmative action for Christian scientists. So clearly inclusion in a human rights statute does not mean that you get into an affirmative action program.

INTERVIEWER: How does it move from a protected class to a situation where, in fact, people are interested in affirmative action programs? What happens? What's the triggering mechanism that moves you from one to the other?

TOM NEVILLE: I think that the triggering mechanism is that in affirmative action, you're trying to correct past wrongs and bring a person or a class of people back up to equal status. Now under Minnesota's human rights law, we do have an affirmative action section in it for minorities, for women, and I believe for people with disabilities. Allan is true that this particular bill does not amend that section. I don't think that's any guarantee necessarily though that in future years, that that argument might not be made.

INTERVIEWER: Let's take another caller. Hello. You're on Minnesota Public Radio.

AUDIENCE: Yes, hello. Thanks for this opportunity. I'm a resident of Saint Paul. And I wanted to ask both of the senators why is the issue that homosexuality or say bisexuality might be a chosen lifestyle versus a natural sexual orientation be relevant in the question of being able to receive basic human or civil rights. I mean, if someone could choose to be a woman or choose to have a darker skin color, should it be lawful to. discriminate against them?

INTERVIEWER: Senator neville?

TOM NEVILLE: Well, I think one of the reasons that we make a distinction between the behavioral-based classifications is that at least, with respect to this one, there are health elements. I think that there's adequate documentation and scientific study which show that the homosexual community do have greater health problems in terms of not only AIDS but sexually transmitted diseases, and hepatitis, and on, and on.

Now ultimately, society as a whole is going to pay the price for that behavior, for that conduct. That was kind of recognized in a 1986 case before the US Supreme Court where the US Supreme Court again said there is no fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. It's not only a millennia of tradition that we're dealing with, but the state also has a valid interest in controlling certain types of behavior because it does have greater societal impact than just between those two particular individuals in the privacy of their own bedroom.

ALLAN SPEAR: You know, I'd like to ask Tom a question. If I had at some very early age in life during my teenage years, let's say, taken a vow of celibacy for some reason, religious reason, whatever, and had kept those vows, would I still be a homosexual?

TOM NEVILLE: Well, you know, I really can't answer that, Allan. Just as I did at the beginning of the program, I don't think there's any scientific evidence that can prove it's genetic. I suppose I can't sit here and argue scientific studies with you. I'm not enough of an expert to say whether a person would have the orientation. I suppose that it's possible a person could have the orientation, and as long as you refrained from the conduct that society would deem objectionable, maybe that would be a different issue.

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, I don't think it is. Because we're really-- I mean, I really think I have to take issue with this continual reference to this as a behavioral characteristic rather than as an orientation. Because a person's orientation is not related necessarily to their behavior. There are, for example, Roman Catholic priests who take vows of celibacy. They remain heterosexual or homosexual in their orientation, but they don't act upon that, but they still are. They still are heterosexuals or homosexuals.

There are people who perhaps just bad luck, don't get very much opportunity to engage in sexual behavior. So we're not talking here about behavior. We're talking about what someone is. And I think that's very important. I think if particular, you look at some of the groups that are supporting this bill this year. They include some groups who have been very clear about their disapproval of homosexual behavior, most notably the Roman Catholic Church.

Yet the Minnesota Catholic Council has approved of this bill this year, the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, of which the Minnesota Catholic Council belongs, is supporting this legislation this year. They have made that distinction. They say that they do not approve of homosexual behavior. They haven't changed their views on that, but they recognize this as something that protects people from discrimination on the basis of their orientation.

And I really think this genetic argument is a red herring because I don't think it matters much whether something is genetic or whether something is deeply inbred at a very early age as a result of various kinds of experiences that we don't fully understand. The fact is that we are talking about an orientation. Something that's fixed. Something that people have to live with one way or the other. And to suggest that the criteria should be behavioral I really think begs the question.

TOM NEVILLE: So I don't. I think that what this bill is going to do is give a platform and some legal cloud behind it to allow homosexual individuals to argue in schools and in other places that this is a legitimate lifestyle, and it's the lifestyle that they're seeking endorsement for. Now if homosexuals were to say to me anyway as a legislator, my orientation is this particular way because of whether it's genetic or environmental. But I assure you that I do not condone the lifestyle, that I will not practice it, and that I will not try to convince other people to practice this lifestyle.

I would look at the issue differently, but I don't think that those two things are going to happen.

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, that's not going to happen because you're basically telling people that they should deny what they are. And I'm not going to deny what I am any more than I would expect you to deny what you are. I happen to be a gay man. I mean, I've been aware of that as long as I can be, as long as I was conscious of such things.

And like many gay and lesbian people of my generation, my first reaction to it was one of horror. I went to a psychiatrist, cure me. And it took a long time for me to come to terms with my orientation and with what I am. And I'm not about to say that there's something illegitimate about what I am, and I'm going to denounce or repudiate what is certainly not all of my life but at least a significant part of my life. I wouldn't expect a heterosexual to do that. So obviously, I think it's unreasonable for someone to be expected to repudiate something that's very much part of their ingrained nature and ingrained character.

INTERVIEWER: I think we have time for one more caller, and we are about out of time, unfortunately. Hello. You're on Minnesota Public Radio.

AUDIENCE: Yes. I want to thank Senator Spear for helping us to move toward a more civilized society. And I've been listening very carefully to the person from Northfield to try to get a rational basis for opposition, and I'm not hearing one. I'm hearing a claim that the law is somehow going to destroy the family. And yet when you ask him where the evidence is that the laws in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Wisconsin, and elsewhere have in fact destroyed the family, he says, well, I don't know that they have.

INTERVIEWER: OK. Your question, because we are out of time here.

AUDIENCE: It comes back to this question of moral fault. The Constitution prohibits the establishment of religion. People do have a right to have their own religious or moral ideas but not to impose them on other people by the state. And we have to have separation of church and state in Minnesota.

INTERVIEWER: Senator Neville?

TOM NEVILLE: Well, separation of church and state is a completely different issue from saying separation of policy and legislation from morality. Morality does not necessarily suggest a religious belief or an establishment of it. The basis of every single law that we have in Minnesota and in our country has to be justice and morality. Otherwise, the whole system is going to crumble.

INTERVIEWER: Let me ask you gentlemen this. We unfortunately don't have enough time for another listener call. Do you get the sense that the debate at the legislature at least over this bill is going to be reasonably civil, or are we going to end up with a pretty ugly situation?

ALLAN SPEAR: I expect it will be reasonably civil among the legislators, but there's material coming in now from certainly from the outside that I wouldn't call reasonable and civil. I was looking for a sample here, and I can't put my hands on it right away. But there was a postcard that came around yesterday referring to this as the Jeffrey Dahmer Bill, for example. I don't think that's a civil discourse. So there's going to be that kind of element, unfortunately, that's going to necessarily enter into the argument.

TOM NEVILLE: I think the debate will be civil. I've talked to Allan before, and I've tried to make it clear that I don't mean personal offense, and I will never intentionally take an offensive position when I debate this bill. And for the people who are listening who happen to oppose this bill, I certainly encourage them that if you get involved in the process, that you always maintain courtesy, respect, and never engage in any type of threatening or violent behavior. It's just not warranted.

INTERVIEWER: Thanks a lot for coming by, gentlemen. Good discussion. State Senators Alan Spear, a DFLer from Minneapolis who supports and is a leading supporter of the bill, and independent Republican State Senator Tom Neville from Northfield, who will be voting against it. The bill in question, an expansion of the state Human Rights Act to include gays and lesbians. It's passed both Judiciary Committees at the legislature but still has to pass both Houses of the legislature before it would become law.