Oklahoma City Council Passes Policy Protecting Gay Employees

UPDATE:  The City Council of Oklahoma City has passed a sexual orientation policy designed to protect gay city employees from discrimination.

The vote was 7-2 in favor of adding sexual orientation to the anti-discrimination policy. Council members Skip Kelly and Larry McAtee voted against it.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The City Council of Oklahoma City will consider Tuesday, November 15, whether to add two words that will protect gay workers to the city employees' anti-discrimination policy.

Councilman Ed Shadid recommended sexual orientation be included in the policy. He says it will protect gay and bisexual employees.

10/25/11 Related Story: OKC Council Defers Vote On Sexual Orientation Resolution

"It's adding two words, sexual orientation, to a laundry list of conditions that the city cannot hire or fire based upon," Shadid said.

Council members deferred the vote for several weeks so they could research the issue. On councilman argued the addition is unnecessary because no such discrimination issue exists in Oklahoma City.

"To some degree it makes it look like that this was put here and brought to us to say that we've been doing something wrong that's we've been sinful against a class of people," Councilman Skip Kelly said.

News 9 and News9.com will be closely following the vote, and will provide updates on this story as soon as they are available.