Guest editorial by David Crowley

I was disappointed to see the Citizens for Civic Values ad that ran in Friday’s Enquirer. The ad places blame on City Council for not allowing a referendum on a law enacted by City Council. This law provides protection from discrimination for many of our citizens. This ad distorts the facts and could not be further from the truth. 

Here are the facts that I hope will shed some light on the issue. In March City Council passed a law to add sexual orientation to the list of categories that should be protected from discrimination just as most major City’s across the Country have already done. There is a provision in Ohio law that allows for a new law to be challenged if enough valid signatures are collected. Citizens for Civic Values was unable to collect enough valid signatures and are now somehow trying to make this City Council’s fault.

The fact that this particular issue was not put on the ballot has nothing to do with City Council. City Council passes laws all the time-that is our job. It has much more to do with questionable tactics used by those who disagreed with the law to provide protection from discrimination in the first place. They are hoping this ad will deflect attention from the fact that they repeatedly and systematically turned in seriously flawed signatures. This smacks of fraud and dishonesty. Right now the County Prosecutor’s office is in the process of investigating these signatures. To make matters worse those who paid to have the signatures collected are attempting to blame one person who forged signatures. Let me tell you the problems with the petitions go far beyond what one person did or did not do and this will be exposed when the County Prosecutor concludes his investigation. It is unfortunate that some in this community, who claim to provide some kind of moral consciousness, would stoop to such lows but from my vantage point they have.

I helped lead the effort to fight discrimination in Cincinnati and I stand by this decision. And I won’t allow misleading messages, to go out without a response. Where is the “value” for Cincinnati in this type of distortion that the Citizens for Civic Values are attempting?

David Crowley
Council Member

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