If a city refuses to prohibit discrimination against its citizens, it effectively endorses discrimination. If the Coeur d’Alene City Council refuses to enact the proposed anti-discrimination measure, it would effectively be declaring to the world: Gays not welcome here. Is that the message that a resort town, committed to the recruitment of tourists, businesses and talented workers, wishes to send?

It is familiar that other cities in Idaho, including Sandpoint, Moscow, Boise and Ketchum, have passed ordinances to prohibit discrimination in the realms of housing, employment and public accommodation on grounds of gender orientation and sexual identity. City officials have noted both the desirability and the necessity of enacting such measures. Gay citizens who were the victims of violence, for example, were fearful of reporting violent incidents to law enforcement officials lest they be outed in police reports and rendered vulnerable in places of employment and housing. As a consequence, there arose a recognition of the virtue of anti-discrimination ordinances as a means of promoting public safety and security.

Businesses, too, have long recognized the value of anti-discrimination measures as a means of creating a better environment for recruiting business, industry and workers. Most of the Fortune 500 companies have implemented non-discrimination measures in their workplaces, an acknowledgment that they are wholly interested in the creativity, productivity and skill sets of employees, and wholly disinterested in their gender orientation and sexual identity.

Utah, led by the Church of Latter-day Saints, has been at the forefront of championing anti-discrimination measures. Salt Lake City and an additional 20 cities throughout the state have enacted and implemented anti-discrimination measures. In Idaho, several additional cities, including Idaho Falls, Pocatello and Twin Falls, are in discussions about the passage of ordinances that would protect gays and lesbians from those who are purveyors of prejudice and practitioners of discrimination.

Opponents of the anti-discrimination measure in Coeur d’Alene have lately registered two criticisms that can be readily swept away. The first involves confusion about the status of sodomy laws in Idaho. The second derives from a misconception about religious freedom and its limitations.

Various opponents have asserted the claim that since sodomy is illegal in Idaho that the passage of the anti-discrimination measure would be inconsistent with state law. This position ignores the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003, in the landmark case of Lawrence v. Texas, rendered a ruling that invalidated anti-sodomy laws, including Idaho’s statute. The Court held that the liberty provision of the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause protected the intimate acts of consenting adults.

As a consequence of the Lawrence decision, the proposed anti-discrimination measure would not be inconsistent with Idaho law. On the contrary, the measure would promote the principles and goals of the 14th Amendment, including Due Process of Law and the Equal Protection of the Laws. The fact of the matter is that discrimination in every form, whether grounded in race, religion, age or gender orientation, runs counter to the principles and values of a Constitutional Democracy.

In a Democracy or a Republic, there is the expectation that all people will be treated equally. That was the premise and promise of the Declaration of Independence and it is enshrined within the confines of the 14th Amendment. It is further expected that policy debates will proceed along lines of rational discussion. Acts of discrimination, however, tear at the fabric of Democracy, for they are fundamentally irrational. After all, enacting laws, implementing regulations and protecting rights and liberties based on one’s skin color, gender, religious principles or gender orientation and sexual identity, has nothing to do with the merits of the proposition at issue and everything to do with the arbitrary prejudices of those who would afford protections to one class of citizens but deny them to other classes.

At bottom, discrimination against gays and lesbians in the areas of housing, employment and public accommodations would relegate those citizens to second class citizenship, and erect a caste system in Coeur d’Alene, not unlike that which deprived African-Americans, other persons of color and, for most of America’s history, women, of equal rights under the law.

The denial of protections for gays and lesbians, moreover, raises a problem of profound implications for North Idaho. Let us recall that gays and lesbians bear all the obligations of citizenship, including payment of taxes and occasional service in the military for the purpose of insuring the nation’s security. Would opponents of the anti-discrimination measure continue to require of gays and lesbians that they bear the obligations of citizenship but deny them the opportunities, benefits and privileges of citizenship? Where is the equity in such a proposition? Indeed, would opponents expect gay and lesbian citizens to serve in the military and risk their lives for their country, only to be vulnerable to dismissal from their jobs because of their gender orientation, denial of housing because of their gender orientation, and denial of access to public accommodations because of their gender orientation? Where is the fairness and justice in such a proposition?

A second concern among opponents of the anti-discrimination ordinance is derived from the mistaken belief that one’s religious beliefs could be imposed on others to deny protection in the realms of employment, housing and public accommodations. The ordinance does protect religious freedom where it matters most—in religious organizations and in private homes. Thus, the anti-discrimination measure does provide an exemption for churches and other religious institutions when it comes to adherence to the ordinance –on church property. A church, for example, might deny employment to someone based on his gender orientation. A homeowner, moreover, has the right to refuse a rental opportunity to citizens based on their gender orientation and sexual identity if the rental unit is in the homeowner’s home or duplex. But the assertion of one’s religious freedom does not include the right to engage in acts of discrimination across the city and throughout Idaho on the basis of gender orientation or sexual identity. The Supreme Court has never held that the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause represents a weapon for private individuals to inflict on those who do not share their religious principles and values. If that were so, sectarian strife would erupt and destroy the very prospect of religious liberty.

Couer d’Alene’s city council has much to contemplate this evening. It holds in its hands the power to send a message to all that will hear it, that the city does not discriminate against citizens. It has in its hands the power to conclude that it will not enter the dark era of rampant discrimination of the kind that ordered Rosa Parks to the back of the bus. For those who are entrusted with the responsibility of protecting and promoting the interests of the city, it is inconceivable that they would declare, with all of its ramifications for tourism, economic development, investment and education, that “gays and lesbians are not wanted” in Coeur d’Alene.

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David Adler is the Director of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University, where he holds appointment as the Cecil D. Andrus Professor of Public Affairs. He has lectured nationally and internationally on the Constitution, the Presidency and the Bill of Rights.