*Update* Seattle to release names of gay and lesbian city workers

[WillParkinson]

Seattle to release names of gay and lesbian city workers

(Seattle) After a Seattle City Light employee filed for the release of the names of gay and lesbian city workers involved in a city-sponsored club earlier in the month, the city of Seattle reluctantly did the same. The city is claiming the state public-records act requires the names to be released.

Philip Irvin, a self-proclaimed civil rights leader who was thwarted in his attempts to create a city-sponsored group of ex-gay employees, asked earlier this month for the names of employees associated with the department’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questioning and Friends Club. Members of the club sued to prevent their names from being released claiming it would violate their privacy.

“The city sympathizes with the concerns that plaintiffs have expressed,” Assistant City Attorney Gary T. Smith said in court documents. “Nonetheless, the city believes that the Public Records Act obligates it to disclose the records at issue.”

http://www.365gay.com/uncategorized/seattle-to-release-names-of-gay-and-lesbian-city-workers/

[ananda]

1. That is SO not right! Where's ACLU on this?

There is such a deep and serious wrongness there,
it's so disturbing to see a group of people
singled out and targeted.

I thought those days were over.

Where's the ACLU on this?

[hedgehog]

2. Does that mean that Seattle is also required to release the names of the members of

the bowling league? This doesn't make any sense to me. Unless the city somehow sponsors the club, why should the city have any officials ties to it? I'm sure many city employees are also members of various congregations. Does the city have to release their names as well?

[WillParkinson]

3. According to the article...

After a Seattle City Light employee filed for the release of the names of gay and lesbian city workers involved in a city-sponsored club earlier in the month.

Though I've no idea what kind of sponsorship the city provides.

[dsc]

4. use of email and some time off each month for club activities.

[sui generis]

5. is belonging to the group proof of gayness or of gay sympathizerness

just curious who they're going after.

[imdjh]

6. He appears to be a general jackass. He joined the City Light Black Employees Association too

As much as I think this man is a jackass, and find him to be nothing but a professional nuisance, I have never quite understood or approved of affinity groups in the workplace. We had them at one major employer where I once worked, and I simply didn't see the point in it, or the valid function of it. Part of my apprehension was the expectation that there would be people like this Irvin guy, just as there were professional jackasses in college who formed clubs primarily for the purpose of re-enforcing ignorance or mocking legitimate groups. But a college and a workplace are not the same thing.