Nicole LeFavour, a lesbian in the Idaho State Senate, is supporting legislation that would amend the Idaho Human Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Scheduled for hearing on Friday, the amendment will first be considered by the nine-member Senate State Affairs Committee. Currently, the bill only protects state employees from discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, and disability.

In the days leading up to the hearing, LeFavour has been trying to mobilize constituents into contacting legislators. More information on the bill, the campaign, and LeFavour can be found at Equality Idaho.

Equality Idaho urged voters to support the bill by talking to their representatives about the following issues:

– This bill simply adjusts an already existing Idaho law to protect gay and transgender people, just as it currently protects people based on race, sex, religion, national origin and disability.

– Hard working, high-performing employees shouldn’t be fired just because they’re gay or transgender.

– The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law recently reported that between 15% to 43% of lesbian, gay and bisexual people (or between 2.25 million and 6.5 million Americans) surveyed since the mid-1990’s reported experiencing unfair employment practices based on their orientation. For transgender people, 20% to 57% of respondents reported having experienced unfair employment practices based on their gender identity.

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the Idaho Senate’s State Affairs Committee voted to print a piece of legislation protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in matters of employment, housing, education and public accommodation.
Out and Victory-endorsed state representative Nicole LeFavour noted the event on her blog, mentioning that Republican Sen. Tim Corder’s support of the bill “speaks loudly to the fundamental fairness implicit in the issue of employment discrimination and to the progress made on understanding of these issues over the years.”
She adds:

Nothing, except giving thanks to those who vote well, is more important than dedicating ourselves to having positive, gentle interactions with legislators who are still on the road to understanding these issues and voting as we would wish. I will never fault a community frustrated with waiting so many long years to see a day when we can not be fired from our jobs solely because we are gay.