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Nov 3, 2009 7:14 pm US/Central
FW Diversity Committee Requests Raising Eyebrows
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
Fort Worth's city council received a long list of recommendations from a diversity committee established to improve relations with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
The recommendations include extra training for all city employees, authorized family leave for LGBT employees with domestic partners and amending health insurance coverage for gender reassignment surgery and other treatments for gender identification disorder.
The diversity committee was established after a June 2009 raid on the Rainbow Lounge, a gay club where one patron suffered a head injury while in police custody.
The diversity committee is comprised of 14 community leaders and 12 city employees -- including Fort Worth Police Chief Jeff Halstead.
The report presented to council identified issues affecting the LGBT community including; the city not recruiting enough LGBT city employees, domestic partners not receiving medical benefits, the city not requiring businesses receiving incentives from the city to provide benefits to domestic partners and the city does not actively seek out LGBT conventions and activities.
"I think there are a number of cities that think they're a lot more progressive than Fort Worth," said council member Kathleen Hicks. "But I think we just raised the bar."
Fort Worth will study similar domestic partner medical benefits in other cities. "We're familiar with models from the medical side of it with Dallas Austin and El Paso who provide domestic partner medical benefits," explained Fort Worth Human Resource Director Karen Marshall.
The management of the Rainbow Lounge was pleased by the recommendations. It's very positive and it's very good for the GLBT community with the changes they're making in these recommendations," said club manager Randy Norman.
Some voters leaving city hall, though, thought the measures were excessive. "I think that's a waste of money," said Jan Randle who supports some of the domestic partner coverage, but not all. "There's homeless in needs of food, housing, you know. Not to get a sex change operation."
Each proposal will be studied by city staff before they are presented to city council as a formal proposal for policy change.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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