House committee passes anti-discrimination bill for LGBTQ Pennsylvanians

The Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee approved a bill Monday that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s nondiscrimination law, a step forward in what was described as a two-decade effort to codify rights for LGBTQ people in the state.

The legislation, House Bill 300, is a fundamental recognition that Pennsylvania “is better when it’s fair,” said Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia, one of the bill’s prime sponsors.

The bill passed out of committee Monday on a party-line vote, with Republicans raising concern that the measure could force certain service providers to act against their convictions or best interest — scenarios that Democrats said were going beyond the scope of the bill.

HB300 amends the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, which creates and empowers the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission — the body that investigates and seeks to resolve complaints of discrimination in housing, employment, and services.

In addition to race, religion, and other attributes listed in current law, HB300 would add “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression” to the list of prohibited types of discrimination.

Those protections already exist, but not statutorily; the PHRC has issued guidance interpreting the existing prohibition on sex-based discrimination as including LGBTQ status, and that interpretation was established via regulation late last year.

Similarly, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County extended some of the protections of federal civil rights legislation to gay and transgender individuals.

But regulatory rulings and court opinions are not the same as having protections enshrined in actual law, Rep. Jessica Benham, D-Allegheny, pointed out, given that those interpretations can change. Further, the Bostock ruling applies only to employment discrimination, and not housing and public accommodation, which are covered under Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.

“Courts do not always adhere to past precedent for future decisions, which is why it is critically important for us to enshrine clearly in law protections against discrimination,” Benham said in response to Rep. Tim Bonner, R-Mercer, who noted that federal lawmakers have held off on similar measures due to concerns from those on the religious right.

HB300 does explicitly include a religious carve-out, referencing the state’s Religious Freedom Protection Act (RFPA) and stating that an individual person or religious entity shall not be required “to engage in conduct that constitutes a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion.”

An amendment to the bill approved by Democrats on another party-line committee vote Monday narrowed that definition of religious entity, limiting the exceptions within the bill to charitable or educational institutions, or those that are tax-exempt under federal law.

The requirements in HB300 still cannot violate the religious freedom act, and Kenyatta stressed that “we would never seek to do anything that would mess with the RFPA.”

But some other Republicans voiced concerns that went beyond religious exercise. Rep. Paul Schemel, R-Franklin, asked if nondiscrimination language could be used to force a doctor to perform gender identity-related treatments they thought were medically unsound; similarly, Rep David Rowe, R-Snyder, suggested the law could allow men to claim to be transgender women in order to access women’s facilities for nefarious purposes.

Democrats criticized what they saw as hypotheticals from across the aisle trying to deflect from the bill itself; Kenyatta told Schemel he was “trying to obscure the issue” and distract from what the legislation actually does, which is to simply codify the ability of the PHRC to hear claims based on sexuality and gender identity.

“We recognize that discrimination is wrong, but yet every single time a new group comes forward and says ‘I would just like to be validated in my humanity’ we have this debate, we come up with reasons why someone is not worthy of the same rights that each of us enjoy,” said Rep. Emily Kinkead, D-Allegheny.

Pennsylvanians are “common sense people,” Kenyatta said, and “it does not make good sense that we do not protect from discrimination every Pennsylvanian. It does not make good sense that we pick and choose which group should not get the basic baseline of dignity and respect and freedom from discrimination that too many people in this room take for granted.”

HB300 will now go before the full House, where Democrats hold a majority, with less certainty of success in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has voiced support for the expansion of non-discrimination measures.

Survey data indicates that discrimination against LGBTQ people in matters that would be covered by the state’s human relations law are widespread. A 2017 Harvard study found that 22 percent of LGBTQ people nationally have experienced discrimination in renting or buying housing; a UCLA survey in 2021 found that 46 percent of LGBTQ people have experienced workplace discrimination at some point, 31 percent of them in the past five years.

Bills adding LGBTQ people to the state’s nondiscrimination law have been introduced every session since 2003, but this is only the second time the measure has passed committee, according to the Pennsylvania Youth Congress, an advocacy organization for LGBTQ youth.