During week seven of the 2015 North Dakota Legislative Session, a big plus on equal rights and some disrespectful subtraction by House Republicans regarding the chaplain of the day. Like elite mathletes, we add it all up and factor in a few odd numbers in this week’s edition of Capitol Letters, your three-minute legislative update.
The right fights: For equal rights
This week’s “right fights” regards the last rites,
of the right’s fight against what is really just right.
So we’ll write about these fights that we won and you might,
just be so excited you’ll say, “wow, alright!”
If there’s anything that can bring out your inner Dr. Seuss, it’s Senate passage of SB 2279, prime sponsored by Senator Carolyn Nelson (D-Fargo). As the Fargo Forum accurately reported, “the bipartisan bill protects gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender residents from discrimination when it comes to employment, public accommodations and services, credit transactions, housing, brokerage services, insurance and jury duty.” It is, to quote Carolyn, a “bill that truly states North Dakota values — respect and acceptance of all our people, regardless of who they love[.]”
You’d think by now that would be a pretty uncontroversial sentiment. So far as we remember, it was a pretty uncontroversial sentiment in the 90s. But the debate on SB 2279 nevertheless got off to a meandering start in the Senate, with small business owner and Republican Senator Ron Sorvaag getting quizzical about the bill’s prohibition of discrimination based on “perceived” sexual orientation.
Raising concern for his “multitasking” employees, Senator Sorvaag was quoted by the Forum as saying if “the person feels they perceived them to be something different than what they are, I’ll be sued[.]” Such scenarios are “happening all over the country, and it’s bankrupting a lot of small businesses[,]” Sorvaag added with flourish and no aversion to overstatement.
Your Dem-NPL senators did our best to bring the debate back to Earth, with a Capitol Letters co-author clarifying that if you don’t discriminate “based on your perception of an individual’s sexual orientation, you’re not going to run afoul of the law. It’s just that simple.”
More eloquently, Senator Erin Oban put matters into perspective with a floor speech that showed what a difference a state senate election can make. We’ve excerpted our favorite parts of her speech below:
“This bill doesn’t create a protected class anymore than it does for race or color or religion or sex or age, because we all have a sexual orientation. Mine happens to be heterosexual. And that will be protected just as much as anybody with a different sexual orientation will be protected. If it passes, and I go to work for my very successful business-owner friend who happens to be gay. He could no longer fire me just for being straight. We don’t often think about it like that, because we don’t have to.”
“And this bill isn’t even a religious issue. As a proud, piano-playing Christian at my church, I certainly respect matters of faith, but I also respect North Dakota law which holds that we can’t be discriminated against, nor discriminate against others, because of our faith. I don’t have to be Jewish or believe in the Jewish faith, or even have any religion at all, to understand that discrimination against someone who is Jewish is wrong.”
Amen.
Ultimately, respect and acceptance won out, with the Senate voting to pass SB 2279 by a narrow 25-22 margin. We are proud the vote was bipartisan, and we were pleasantly surprised to see Senator Sorvaag vote yes after considering our arguments. We will note, however, that we got to 25 votes by combining those of every last Dem-NPL senator with the votes of a minority of the majority. So as you go through the tally counting one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, keep in mind that passage of SB 2279 wouldn’t have happened without those blue fish
Fair treatment. Non-discrimination. Making North Dakota an even more welcoming place for all of our citizens. That’s what Senators Nelson and Oban are fighting for. It’s the right fight for North Dakota.
Head-shaker:
In each edition of Capitol Letters, we share some of the quirkier things we see and hear during our work in the Legislature. We call it the “head-shaker” feature, and our goal is to mix levity with civility while also being informative.
But it’s hard to make light of House Republicans’ treatment of a Bismarck surgeon who was scheduled to give the daily prayer before that chamber’s floor session on Wednesday. With the power of perfect hindsight, we bring you the entirety of the prayer. See if you can pick out anything controversial (credit to the Forum’s Mike Nowatzki for the transcription):
Peace be upon you. In the name of God, the most merciful, the most benefactor, praise be to God, the cherisher and sustainer of the words, most gracious, most merciful, master of the day of judgment. You alone we worship, and you alone we ask for help. Show us the straight way, the way of those on whom you have bestowed your grace, not the way of those who earned your anger nor those who went astray. Oh God, guide us with those whom you have guided, and preserve us with those whom you have preserved. Take us to your care, with those whom you have taken to your care. Bless us in what you have given us. Protect us from the evil you have ordained. Surely you command and are not commanded. And none whom you have befriended shall be humiliated. And none whom you have taken as an enemy shall taste glory. You are blessed, our Lord, and exalted.
We here at Capitol Letters think this respectful prayer left all envelopes in the capitol vicinity entirely unpushed. Nevertheless, Dr. Kadim Koleilat never got the chance to deliver it to the members of the House. You see, Dr. Koleilat is of the Muslim faith, and “Republican [House] leaders” canceled his prayer when “some members thought it was more appropriate to have a Christian deliver the invocation[]” on Ash Wednesday.
The ever-outspoken Representative Dwight Kiefert was of such a belief. As Kiefert exasperatedly told the Forum, “I mean, you had representatives on the floor with ash on their foreheads commemorating the day. And so then you’re going to force them to listen to a prayer that they don’t agree with? It wasn’t very well thought out, I don’t think[.]”
We tend to agree with the last three words of Kiefert’s quote. The rest, “we think[,]” deserves a little more attention.
What part of Dr. Koleilat’s prayer, had it not been subjected to prior restraint, might Kiefert have disagreed with? The part about God being “gracious” and “merciful”? The request to “[s]how us the straight way”? The part about peace being upon Kiefert and the members of the House of Representatives?
As to Kiefert’s protestations about the timing of the prayer, we’ll say this: The lawmakers who collectively represent every North Dakotan can be welcoming of all faiths even as they practice their own. We think most North Dakotans would agree with the Reverend Rich Wyatt of Living Hope Church of the Nazarene in Bismarck, who “thought nothing of it” when it came to scheduling Dr. Koleilat on Ash Wednesday.
In contrast to Kiefert’s “thoughts” (please permit us a measure of poetic license here), consider those of Dr. Koleilat himself. As he discussed with the Forum, “My whole objective was to give the prayer and then to let the people listen to the word of God. I’m not into politics[.] I have no trouble. I really am grateful that they thought about the Muslim community and invited a person to come.”
While the House’s actions cannot be undone, the North Dakota Senate did invite Dr. Koleilat to deliver his prayer that same day. Those of us in the Senate stood silently and respectfully as he did. But now that we know the way he was treated by our colleagues in the majority across the hall, we’re shaking our heads.
Until next week
We’ll end where we started this Capitol Letters with a bit of a Seuss caboose: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Your Dem-NPL legislators know that it’s sometimes one step forward and one step back when it comes to making things better, but we never stop caring a whole awful lot about North Dakota and its people. So in that spirit, keep the faith, keep up the fight, and like us on Facebook.
