Local News in Brief : Irvine : Preliminary OK Given Human Rights Law

The City Council voted 4 to 0 late Tuesday to give a controversial human rights ordinance preliminary approval.

The ordinance, based on a similar federal bill, prohibits discrimination by race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation, marital status and physical disability. It would cover the workplace, housing, public places and educational institutions.

Exempted from the measure are churches, people renting out their private homes and businesses with less than five employees.

The council will conduct the legally required second reading of the measure at its July 12 meeting.

The Irvine Values Coalition, a recently formed group headed by Mike Lennon, disagrees with classifying homosexuals as a specific group in the ordinance and thus opposed it.

“Historically, (homosexuality) has been a matter of preference,” he said. “Not like sex, race or origin, those are things that just are.”

Lennon said his coalition fears groups such as boys’ clubs and the Boy Scouts of America will not be allowed to turn down homosexual job applicants. His group wants the issue to be placed on the November ballot.

Councilman Ray Catalano argued that every issue should not be placed on the ballot.

Catalano said that people’s success should be determined by their individual behavior, not by their membership in a class of people.