Claman wants voters to settle gay rights debate

About 200 people were on the list to talk about three related proposals already on the table, and Assembly Chairwoman Debbie Ossiander, who closed the sign-ups list last week, reopened that process Tuesday. But she warned those who want to add their names to the long line of people who want to testify that it may take awhile for them to be heard.

"It may be a month if you sign up," she said.

The Assembly has a special meeting scheduled tonight, but that is restricted to questions about the future of the Knik Arm crossing project. The Assembly's next regularly scheduled meeting, during which more public testimony on the anti-discrimination ordinance could be heard, is July 7. After that, July 21.

Ossiander said she has no current plans to call additional special meetings on the anti-discrimination ordinance, but she said that could change.

After three previous sessions dominated by testimony on the issue, the Assembly spent the first two-plus hours of Tuesday's meeting on other public business.

But the chamber filled early, mostly with people waiting to testify about the equal rights changes. As a result, Ossiander fretted that people kept outside in the lobby might want to testify during hearings on matters other than the anti-discrimination ordinance but be unaware their chance to talk to the body was passing.

"Do we have anybody that can announce the items that we're on, out in the lobby?" she asked. Someone set up a television so people outside could track what happened inside the chamber.

Claman originally asked the Assembly last month to take up the question of changing the city's equal rights laws to make it illegal to discriminate against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people. The issue, which has a long and divisive political history in Anchorage stretching back to the 1970s, once again touched a nerve.

Conservative Christian opponents have turned out by the hundreds to oppose the idea, along with hundreds of others who think it's long past time that Anchorage joined more than 100 other American communities in passing such legislation protecting the rights of gays in employment, housing, finance, education and public accommodations.

Ossiander and Assemblyman Dan Coffey said earlier in the day that additional versions of the measure could surface. And Tuesday night, Claman acknowledged he was readying two new proposed ordinances that would put amendments adding sexual orientation protections to the city charter on the ballot next spring.

Claman said he planned to ask the Assembly to introduce those measures July 7 and set them for hearings July 21. He said he would back off that plan if somehow the Assembly was able to hear everyone and close the hearing Tuesday night. That seemed clearly impossible.

People on both sides of the issue have said they will take it to the ballot if the vote goes against them. Instead of having one side or the other challenge the Assembly's decision, Claman said he thinks it might be better for the Assembly to put the charter amendments on the ballot and have voters decide.

Two ordinances might be needed, Claman said, because the charter addresses equal rights issues in two separate places. Both would have to be changed to add sexual orientation, he said.

If the issue is likely to reach the ballot through a referendum anyway, "my view is it should go on as a charter amendment," the acting mayor said.

Deciding to do so might cut short the current, extended public hearing process on the ordinances, he said. "If it's going on the ballot, why would people need to testify (now)," he said.

In an interview, Ossiander said she was aware of Claman's plan, but she hasn't decided what she thinks about it.

"I have some trepidations," she said.

An eight-vote supermajority is needed to put charter amendments on the ballot. By the time the question reaches the Assembly, Claman would be back in his voting seat on the body, following the July 1 swearing-in of new Mayor Dan Sullivan. Even so, it's unclear if eight members would support adding the issue to the ballot in April 2010.

Tuesday night's hearing was gaveled open at 8:15 p.m. The clerk's office at the same time began accepting names for the next sign-up list. A line more than a dozen deep formed within seconds.

Contact reporter Don Hunter at dhunter@adn.com or 257-4349.