Cold Spring votes 4-1 for LGBTQ fairness ordinance

Cold Spring, KY) With a vote of four to one tonight, the city of Cold Spring, population 6,370, became the 19th municipality in Kentucky to approve a Fairness Ordinance, adding sexual orientation and gender identity to discrimination protections in employment, housing, and public accommodations.

The Campbell County community becomes the fifth Northern Kentucky city to pass a Fairness Ordinance in the last year and the third municipality in the state to approve LGBTQ rights in 2020.

Council Member Adam Sandfoss, who introduced the ordinance, presided over tonight’s meeting in the absence of the mayor. Following the vote, he shared, “I’m proud of our city’s vote for equal rights tonight. We want folks to know Cold Spring is a community everyone can call home, and I hope our action will inspire more Northern Kentucky communities–maybe even Campbell County–to adopt similar protections for all their residents.”

Now nineteen Kentucky municipalities have local Fairness Ordinances, covering just over 27% of the commonwealth’s population: Louisville (1999), Lexington (1999), Covington (2003), Vicco (2013), Frankfort (2013), Morehead (2013), Danville (2014), Midway (2015), Paducah (2018), Maysville (2018), Henderson (2019), Dayton (2019), Georgetown (2019), Versailles (2019), Bellevue (2019), Highland Heights (2019), Fort Thomas (2020), Woodford County (2020), and Cold Spring (2020).

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the introduction of a Statewide Fairness Law, which has only received two informational hearings in the Kentucky General Assembly, and never a vote. Last week at the Fairness Campaign rally in Frankfort, Governor Andy Beshear called for passage of the Statewide Fairness Law and a ban on “conversion therapy.”