Charlotte Council, Mayoral Candidates Back LGBT Rights

Candidates for City Council and mayor in Charlotte, N.C., are promising to support an LGBT-inclusive civil rights ordinance after the council failed to pass one earlier this year.

Twelve candidates for at-large seats on the council attended an LGBT issues forum Tuesday night, and all but one said they back such an ordinance, The Charlotte Observer reports. The one holdout, Democrat Laurence Bibbs, said he needed to study the issue further.

The supporters included two Republicans. There are a total of 15 candidates for the four at-large seats on the council, 12 of them Democrats. Two Democrats and one Republican were absent from the forum.

Most of those present voiced strong support for such an ordinance. "It's a fundamental core issue about fairness and equality," said Democratic candidate Mo Idlibby, according to North Carolina LGBT publication QNotes.

Billy Maddalon, a Democrat who's the only openly gay candidate in the race, said the defeat of the proposed ordinance last March "was uniquely painful for me," QNotes reports. It motivated him to run for City Council, he said.

The ordinance was defeated by a vote of 6-5, amid much controversy over its public accommodations provision, which would have allowed transgender people to use the restrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-segregated facilities that match their lived gender. At the time, some council members suggested dropping such facilities from the list of public accommodations. But at the forum, candidate Bruce Clark said he would favor an "uncompromised" ordinance, and most others agreed.

Mayor Dan Clodfelter and his two of his competitors in the Democratic primary, Jennifer Roberts and David Howard, also said they would back the ordinance in its original form.

Most candidates at the forum also said they would work to to address homelessness among LGBT people, have the city reach out to LGBT-owned businesses, and support inclusion of transgender-specific health care procedures in city employees' benefits.

The city elects four council members at large and seven from districts. The primary election will be held September 15 and the general election November 3.