Anti-discrimination bill wins final approval in Nevada Assembly

AB311, sponsored by the Legislature's only openly gay lawmaker, expands existing law barring discrimination based on race, color, creed, sex, religion, disability or nationality.

"The standard applied to one employee should be applied to all employees," says the bill's author, Assemblyman David Parks, D-Las Vegas. "Workplace discrimination is especially egregious. To deprive anyone of employment is to deny them sustenance."

Parks said that in his case he began working with computers for the city of Las Vegas in 1971 and later moved to the city manager's office - but his job was eliminated because of rumors that he was dying of AIDS.

Now going to the governor for his signature, AB311 won legislative approval despite attempts by conservatives to stifle the bill. It was amended in the upper house to exempt organizations like the Boy Scouts of America.

The bill has been blasted by conservative groups who say Park's legislation is an inappropriate expansion of gay rights. One, the Nevada Eagle Forum, termed the measure part of the "world expansion of homosexual influence."

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