By Ron Hayes
Sept. 10 was a very good day for Rand Hoch.
That morning, the Palm Beach County Commission voted unanimously to reimburse county employees for the federal tax they pay when adding an unmarried partner to the county health plan. The vote was unanimous.
That evening, the Palm Beach Gardens City Council agreed to offer health insurance benefits to its employees’ domestic partners and dependent children. That vote, too, was unanimous.
And that same evening, the Boca Raton City Council voted 4-1 to extend domestic partner benefits to municipal employees, and the council also prohibited hiring discrimination based on sexual orientation.
That vote was 5-0, and the end of a seven-year fight for Rand Hoch.
Hoch, an attorney and workplace mediator, is the founder and president of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
The council grew out of the earlier, gay-oriented Atlantic Coast Democratic Club, Hoch recalled recently. In 1988, the County Commission had three Republicans and two Democrats.
“We wanted a nonpartisan organization so both parties would feel comfortable dealing with openly gay and lesbian people,” Hoch said.
To that end, the name, “Human Rights Council,” was deliberately vague.
“We needed people to put our name on their endorsement list, along with the Sierra Club,” Hoch said. “But we’ve never hidden our agenda. We aren’t advocating for immigration reform.”
The council’s first success came in 1991, when West Palm Beach prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public employment, the first gay-rights law enacted in Florida since the 1970s.
Three years later, that city banned discrimination based on sexual orientation in both private and public employment, as well as in housing and public accommodation.
Now, a quarter-century after its founding, virtually every municipality in the county protects gays and lesbians, encouraged by HRC lobbying.
“It’s persistence,” Hoch says. Not money or manpower.
The group has no membership, and an email list of fewer than 1,000. It’s run by a 10-member board of directors and perhaps 15-20 volunteers.
“I’m the loudest voice on the council,” Hoch says, “but I’m not the lone voice.”
For more information, visit www.pbchrc.org.
Comments