February 11, 1993
TO: James E. Nathanson
Chair, Committee on the Judiciary
FROM: Donald M. Haines
SUBJ: Revised language on discrimination suggested for the committee report on Bill
10-30
This is a revised version of the language, referring to discrimination and the Human
Rights Act and rooting that language firmly in the testimony before the committee, which I
said I would provide for the committee report on Bill 10-30:
During its hearing, the Committee received testimony from several witnessed to the
effect that when a vague criminal statute of general applicability is widely violated but
not generally enforced, there arises the opportunity for selective, discriminatory
enforcement against disfavored minorities and individuals. The example of improperly using
vague loitering laws against African-Americans and civil rights activists was frequently
cited.
Numerous witnesses also testified that the specific law under amendment in the proposed
bill has itself been the source of discriminatory enforcement, so that one of the effects
of this bill would be in fact to reduce such discrimination—discrimination prohibited
under Chapter 25 of title 1 of the D.C. Code. The Committee was informed that, precisely
because sodomy laws routinely involve such discrimination while also providing a perceived
"authorization" for other forms of collateral discrimination, numerous religious
denominations and organizations—including the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the
General Board of Church and Society of the united Methodist Church, the American Jewish
Committee, the American Friends Service Committee, the Unitarian Universalist Association,
the Office of Church in Society of the United Church of Christ, the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the National
Federation of (Roman Catholic) Priests
