Goshen not passing civil rights ordinance

A city ordinance to protect the rights of the LGBT community will not be addressed at the July 7th council meeting but the mayor says he's doing this to protect citizens of the city, not harm them.

Goshen Mayor, Allan Kauffman, told us "my concern was that we would send a message, a false message, about Goshen."

Kauffman knew he might face resistance if he pulled a city ordinance designed to protect the rights of the LGBT community.

But he believes the only way to do it is letting people who have Goshen's best interests at heart speak on it.

"If we were going to tackle it this time we were going to try to limit who got to talk. I don't care what Eric Miller in Indianapolis thinks about what goes on in Goshen. I care about what people who live here, who work here, own business or property here, think. So we were looking at limiting the input to the people that would actually be affected by the ordinance but we never got to the point because they said we're not going to vote for it so we're going to go a different path."

The reason that the council doesn't want to vote on it is because many republicans believe it's a state issue not a local one.

Council member Brett Weddell said, "we could create that new protective class but the problem is if there's ever a case where someone feels as though they've been discriminated against you have to have consent from both parties to pursue the investigation and if an employer says I don't want to consent then it isn't going anywhere and therefore doesn't really provide any new protection. So I think it's probably more important that it comes from the state."

Both Republican and Democratic city leaders are drafting up their own versions of the ordinance hoping one could possibly pass in the coming months.