By Scott Brinton and Angela Marshall
Mr. Peters is a certified social worker and director of the Bellmore-based Pride for Youth Program, an offshoot of the Long Island Crisis Center that weekly provides a Friday-night coffeehouse for up to 100 gay and lesbian teenagers. Mr. Peters is certain that his partner and he had fallen victim to housing discrimination. He remains unsure, however, whether they were treated as outcasts because they were gay, because his partner was African-American, or both.
"We went to a number of apartments to find that they were rented fairly quickly," he said. "It wasn't easy. We ended up living in Jericho."
Mr. Peters, who now calls Long Beach home, said, "If landlords have a choice, they will often opt to rent to a heterosexual couple, based on their own beliefs or perceptions."
When Mr. Peters was searching for an apartment, he had no legal recourse to fight such housing discrimination. But a law passed 19-0 by the County Legislature last week now prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender, age, disability, religion, ethnicity and source of household income. Before the law, Nassau only restricted discrimination based on race, creed, color and national origin.
The new measure, called the Human Rights Commission and Open Housing Law, was introduced by the Legislature's Democratic majority. It was modeled after similar legislation passed in New York City and Suffolk County and will allow residents to sue in civil court if they face housing or job discrimination, said Legislator David Denenberg (D-Merrick).
Mr. Denenberg called the measure landmark legislation. "Anything that makes a statement with respect to human rights, which covers such areas as gender, age, source of income, is a landmark," he said. "It's amazing that we had not covered that sooner."
Legislator Joseph Scannell (D-Baldwin) said, "As legislators, we have the responsibility to ensure that every individual within the county is afforded an equal opportunity to succeed and enjoy their equal rights. By amending our current human-rights legislation to include these new criteria, we have accomplished this."
Democrats in the Legislature had proposed a similar law during the mid-1990's. Mr. Denenberg said that, under the then-Republican-controlled Legislature, the measure never moved past a proposal. He declined to speculate why.
Legislator Vincent Muscarella (R-West Hempstead), who represents Malverne and parts of North Valley Stream, said, "It's unfair to say that one group or another blocked legislation. I don't recall that there was any conscious effort to block this kind of legislation previously."
Of the new law, Mr. Muscarella said, "It moves the county toward recognizing that all citizens need to be treated fairly and equally."
Herbert Ruben, executive director of the Woodmere-based Peninsula Counseling Center, which this fall started a program to counsel homosexuals, said he was pleased that the Legislature set aside political differences and enacted the new law in bipartisan fashion. "It's a rather remarkable step," he said.
Mr. Peters said that, at Pride for Youth, "We're thrilled with [the new law]. It's a long time coming. The general public assumed that you couldn't discriminate based on sexual orientation. The reality was that, in Nassau County, you could." Nassau is now the fifth jurisdiction in New York to afford discrimination protections for gays and lesbians, according to the Empire State Pride Agenda, an advocacy group for homosexuals with offices in New York City.
"We are gratified that the Nassau Legislature has recognized that gay men and lesbians deserve the same protections against discrimination as everyone else," said Matt Foreman, the Pride Agenda's executive director. A Pride survey this fall found that 80 percent of Nassau residents, an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 of whom are homosexual, supported legislation protecting individuals because of their sexual orientation.
The Pride Agenda was among those organizations that fought hardest for the new law. Their lobbying effort began in the summer of 1999. The Agenda had also helped pass a similar law last year in Westchester County, where it faced stiff opposition from the Archdiocese of New York. Pride officials noted that, in Nassau County, the Diocese of Rockville Centre remained quiet over the new law.
Mr. Peters said that the measure provides much-needed protections for gay and lesbian workers in professions where they are most vulnerable to discrimination, such as teaching. "A lot of gay teachers don't feel comfortable coming out because they feel they'll lose their jobs. With the passage of this law, it gives them the support they need to be who they are and not have to hide."
Freeport resident Ken Dash, who described himself as a non-Caucasian gay man approaching age 65, was among those who spoke in support of the new law during hearings for it. "We should all have full advantage of our lives," said Mr. Dash, a Democratic zone leader and retiree from the U.S. Army.
Don Dreyer, who serves as director of the Nassau Office for the Physically Challenged, also spoke in favor of the law before the Legislature. The Rockville Centre resident, who is wheelchair bound, has seen firsthand the injustices that the handicapped face daily. Mr. Dreyer was among the thousands who fought for the 1990 federal Americans with Disabilities Act. He praised the County Legislature for including the disabled in the new law, calling the act a fitting commemoration of ADA's 10th anniversary.
Mr. Dreyer also said the county law will reinforce the ADA's mandates. He noted that ADA has helped the disabled in so many ways; however, they lag far behind the general population in employment. The U.S. unemployment rate now stands at 3.5 percent. For the severely disabled, however, it looms around 68 percent, he said.
Simon Lamhut is a 47-year North Bellmore resident and former president of a local chapter of the American Association for Retired Persons. He was unsure whether older adults face housing discrimination, but "definitely job-wise."
"When a person gets beyond a certain age, they want to get rid of these people; therefore, they find ways to let them go. I had that personal experience myself," said Mr. Lamhut, an electronics engineer who retired from an international telecommunications company in 1996.
"Number one, employers prefer younger people because they get cheaper labor," he said. "Older people with more experience and a heavy r
