My name is Josh Kershenbaum. I live on Arbor Road in Rowland Park in our 7th Ward.  My wife and I have lived here for almost ten years. Our son attends Cheltenham Elementary School. I am a parent, an attorney, and a very proud member of Cheltenham Area Residents for Equality.

 

We are here to urge you to enact an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, employment and public accommodations - a step that our neighbors in Abington, Springfield, Haverford, Lower Merion and 18 other municipalities in Pennsylvania have already taken.

 

The need for this ordinance stems from a simple principle: Discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on actual or perceived sexual orientation is wrong, and must not be allowed in Cheltenham.  Currently, our state and federal laws prohibit such discrimination based on other characteristics, such as race, religion and ability. Yet sadly, neither Pennsylvania nor federal law protects us from discrimination based on our sexual orientation – an aspect of our lives as essential, intrinsic and important as our race, religion or creed. 

 

I did not choose my sexual orientation.  It is fundamental to who I am an inextricable part of my ability to participate in society as a free person.  To deny me equal access to a job, a house or a public accommodation because of whom I do or do not love is as great an affront to my civil rights as is the denial of such rights based on which God, if any, I choose to worship. It is wrong. It is un-American, and it should be unlawful in a free society.

While there is no price tag on liberty, the ordinance we propose is virtually cost-zero.  The local Human Relations Commission it would create would be staffed by volunteers, who would be trained for free by the state Human Relations Commission.  35 of your constituents, many of whom are here tonight, have already come forward to volunteer for the commission, and more are sure to follow. The ordinance builds on our state Human Relations law and is essentially identical to ordinances already enacted in 22 other municipalities across Pennsylvania. In short, there will be no need to break the bank or reinvent the wheel.

Finally, I am compelled to say a word about the Boy Scouts cabin.  Some of you wonder: “What will this ordinance mean for the Boy Scouts?” I respectfully suggest that the answer is up to the Boy Scouts.  If they are not discriminating, then the ordinance simply does not affect them at all.  And if the Scouts – or anyone else – IS doing so, then we should be prohibiting that discrimination, not protecting it.  

 

As our Commissioners, you have the power and the duty to ensure the equal protection of our laws.  This commitment to equality is long and proud in Cheltenham.  Our village of LaMott was one of the first and only neighborhoods in 19th century America to embrace racially integrated living.  Back then, the notion of whites and blacks purchasing land side by side and living in an integrated neighborhood was unheard of.  But today, we can look back proudly and say that Cheltenham stood on the right side of history.

 

Today, some 150 years after the founding of LaMott, and one day after our great military bravely saluted equality by abandoning Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, you have the opportunity and the obligation to uphold America’s and Cheltenham’s great tradition of equal protection under the law.

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