Ohio lawmakers have reintroduced a bill to forbid employment and housing discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community.
The latest iteration of the Ohio Fairness Act was introduced by Democratic Representative Michael Skindell and Republican Representative Brett Hillyer on Wednesday. The bill's unveiling comes about two weeks after a request from minority Democrats to extend employment protections to gay House employees was denied by House Speaker Larry Householder. More than two dozen Ohio communities, including Columbus, have adopted LGBTQ discrimination protections but that only covers about a fourth of the state's population. A similar bill has been filed every session of legislation since 2003 but has only won passage in the House in 2009, before it died in the Senate.
