Live Blogging City Council. main issue: bill 2012-296, human rights bill

[RiversideLoki]

This lawyer's head is so shiny.

[AshleyLauren]

By council rule all business of the CC must end by midnight. Therefore, people can wait but it sounds as if they mean you should go. However, before the president even finished his statement half the chamber is gone.

[TheCat]

attorney accidentally refers to council as "members of the jury".  He fears that moral objectors to homosexuality will be sued. Provides examples, photographers were sued because they did not want to photograph a same sex marriage. Furnishes a few other examples.

The speaker before him says, "if the community is 86 percent for this bill than the bill is not necessary.

Okay, council rules dictate that the city agenda must be completed before midnight. So, they have to continue to other agenda matters. Joost asks the people in the gallery to stand if they want to show their support. The majority of the room stand. Then asks those who want to show their opposition to stand. A few stand.

Recess is proclaimed. The crowd flees. As do I.

[Tacachale]

Thank you all for the entertaining and edifying coverage.

[duvaldude08]

^^ And dont forget to thank Kim Daniels for an uneventful meeting! I kinda like having her around. Comic relief at its best! 

[Timkin]

^^ And dont forget to thank Kim Daniels for an uneventful meeting! I kinda like having her around. Comic relief at its best! 

Only way I would thank her ,is for stepping down, and that is not going to happen !

[Debbie Thompson]

Thank you for catching me up.  I had to leave at the break at 9:00.  I had comments prepared, but when I saw the stack of speaker cards, I figured I'd wait and see how it went before I put one in. I didn't need to.  When I left, the count was 42 in favor, 2 against, including Pastor Brunson who spoke for several churches. However, the pastor of our church, Arlington Congregational, an ONA - open and accepting congregation - along with others, wrote a letter in support. And many other pastors, including other Baptist pastors, spoke in support. 

My favorite speaker of the night may have been the Rabbi, who compared Leviticus 18:22, which speaks of a man sleeping with a man, as a "small" transgression as opposed to an abomination, and compared it to eating a ham sandwich. Even if you believe it's not wrong at all, you had to love the Rabbi.  Although, the speaker who quoted the verses about adulterers being sentenced to stoning and not to touch the skin of a dead pig (football) came in a close second, I have to say.

[joshuataylor]

The City Council just voted to extend meeting to 12:30am. Yarborough once again begins calling names on cards for Amendment 2012-296, but the majority of the individuals left the chambers after the amendment was tabled. Council Member Crescimbini brings to the attention of the Council that the language used when the amendment was tabled (that individuals would have time to stand at the end of the meeting) was not clear enough to convey to the public that they would lose their opportunity to speak before the council.

Joost deems the practice fair.

Now I'm sitting in the council room listening to the names of people who all had stories to tell being read aloud to deaf ears. Presently, six speakers of the 100+ have been present to speak. If you wished to have your voice heard, the Good Old Boy system has just tricked you out of your opportunity. Welcome to the Bold New City Of The South.

[Jimmy]

Oh, what a night. 

This has been a very long night. It's the home stretch at the City Council. Speakers tonight were something like 90 in favor of our bill and 18 opposed. Had more people stayed, while Council went back to other business, I think we'd have had a slightly better ratio. But I'll take it.

And thank you for the nice comments on my speaking.  It was a lot to orchestrate and I'm quite glad it's over.

Next, the action will shift to June 4 and June 5 for the bill's two committee hearings.  And then, hopefully, onward to victory on June 12 at Council.

[WmNussbaum]

I quit watching around 11:00. If anyone who wanted to speak was not allowed to, I seriously doubt if any new points could have been made.

Seeing folks who chose to speak in public who did not have the ability to put two sentences together was painful. Speaking of which, I am thankful that Ms. Daniel did not have to ask anyone for the time of day; if she had had to ask, it would have taken her a minute or so to get the question out:  With regard to the hour - - - that is -- umm -- I was wondering if there is the possibility that --- about minutes too, if you wouldn't mind explaining - - - ummm, how is it that  --- what I want to know is if --- well anyhow exactly what time is it???

[tufsu1]

My favorite speaker of the night may have been the Rabbi, who compared Leviticus 18:22, which speaks of a man sleeping with a man, as a "small" transgression as opposed to an abomination, and compared it to eating a ham sandwich. Even if you believe it's not wrong at all, you had to love the Rabbi.  Although, the speaker who quoted the verses about adulterers being sentenced to stoning and not to touch the skin of a dead pig (football) came in a close second, I have to say.

Rabbi Lief is a very good speaker and hios synagogue and the overall community are better because he is here.

He and I have had a few conversations about keeping kosher....yes, I very much enjoy a ham sandwich

[tufsu1]

If you wished to have your voice heard, the Good Old Boy system has just tricked you out of your opportunity. Welcome to the Bold New City Of The South.

The Gool Ole Boy system would never have scheduled a meeting just to hear public comment on this item

[ChriswUfGator]

Who was the lawyer against an anti-discrimination bill? So I know who to add to my shit-list when I run across him. Gay, black, Indian chief, disabled, whatever, discrimination is discrimination and should be battled wherever possible. It's embarrassing to see so many people arguing their personal religious beliefs are grounds to subjugate whole swaths of the population to second-class citizenry. And for the record these are the same tired old arguments people used in the 1950s and 1960s to maintain segregation. And before that, it was the Italians. And before that it was the Irish and Catholics. During WWII it was the Japanese.

There is always some group appointed to serve as U.S. society's whipping boy. Next in line after gay people seems to be Hispanics. Sad facet of human nature. Even more sad and disturbing to watch people justify it with the same tired old religious arguments and flimsy justifications. Shows we've learned nothing as a nation for 100 years. This is also a civic embarrassment, as Jimmy Midyette noted on the news last night, every other major city including Daytona Beach (much smaller than we are) has already implemented an anti-discrimination bill.

"The fact that 86% of the community support it means we don't need it..." WTF, seriously?

[Springfield Chicken]

Well, that was a heck of a night. 

Random thoughts:  we should probably check out all the other 66 major cities that have passed a similar ordinance to see if a lot of mustached, mini skirt wearing men have been showing up to work.  (The first speaker, the minister, is apparently concerned this will be a problem.)

Ms Daniels has a concern that if we don't discriminate against these people then nobody will be special because we won't be discriminating against anyone?  Isn't that sort of the point?

Someone observed the irony that the meeting was preceeded by the Pledge of Allegiance during which we all  supported "liberty and justice for all" and then went on to discuss NOT doing it.  Hmmm.

I'm guessing the tourism department in Egypt is working on new advertising slogans even as we speak, like "VIst Egypt!  Bring your sheep!"

I left some time after 10 when I thought my head would explode if I heard one more remark that danced around what is, in fact, simple bigotry.

I heard no arguments from the other side that would not have been deemed horrendous if you substituted the word "black" for the subject at hand.  Property rights?  Okay, if it's legal to discriminate against the LGTB community because it's your own property then why not blacks?  Come on.  This is the same group of people who said these same things 50 years ago. 

As was pointed out repeatedly, it's time for Jacksonville to go down THIS time on the RIGHT side of history.

[duvaldude08]

The thinking of some people in this city really baffles me. At my job I am the lead over one of our employee resource groups, which is the black leadership forum. We have one that is for gays and trangenders also. However, they have not been active in years and I talk to the lead he does not care to even bring it back up because of all the negative feedback the company was getting. At one point, we were allowed to pass out information to employees. Well employees became "offended"by been offering information and emails begin flying to HR quoting bible scripctures and stated they could not believe that our company supported such an initiative. Really? There is a resource group for blacks, asians, veterans and the disabled. But its wrong for us to have one for gay employees?