Dwayne Steward is CEO and executive director of Equality Ohio.
In Ohio, it would be illegal for an employer to fire me because I’m Black, or because I’m Christian, but under state law I can be fired because I’m gay.
Ohio, like most states, has a list of unlawful discriminatory practices.
For example, in Ohio it is illegal to fire someone based on their race. It’s illegal to refuse to rent an apartment or sell a home to someone because that person has a disability. And it’s illegal for Ohio restaurants, movie theaters, and other spaces known as “public accommodations” to refuse to serve military service members.
Free to discriminate
But neither the state of Ohio, nor the federal government has outlawed discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community.
In the absence of state and federal protections, dozens of municipalities across Ohio have passed their own nondiscrimination policies and ordinances, including Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Oberlin, Sandusky and Youngstown.
These protections address discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations, and are vital to the many LGBTQ+ people who call Ohio home.
In fact, about one-third of Ohio’s population — including potentially hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ Ohioans — lives in a jurisdiction with a local nondiscrimination measure, providing crucial protections for our community.
But still, far too many Ohioans live nowhere near one. Equality Ohio’s Roadmap Back to Equality aims to change that; to build a state where no LGBTQ+ person is more than 45 minutes from a community that has affirmatively said: you belong here.
We can’t roll back to inequality
Unfortunately, a wave of confusion and fear is prompting municipalities to consider weakening or repealing their LGBTQ+ protections–particularly nondiscrimination ordinances and conversion therapy bans–potentially rolling back decades of community organizing and coalition-building.
Some of this confusion comes from the recent Supreme Court ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, a case about how anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy can be regulated. Importantly, the case was not about whether the practice is safe for minors, which it is not.
More confusion comes from Ohio’s Senate Bill 1, 2025’s Advance Ohio Higher Education Law.
The law bans diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in higher education but neither it nor the Supreme Court ruling require Ohio cities to roll back their nondiscrimination protections. No state or federal law requires municipalities to rescind any of these LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination ordinances.
This patchwork of municipal policies can be confusing, especially in the face of state and federal officials who are working to dismantle the progress of recent decades.
The answer to legal complexity, however, is not to walk away from these nondiscrimination protections, it’s to listen to the LGBTQ+ community and to legal counsel who is familiar with these issues.
As the CEO and executive director of Equality Ohio, we are ready to work with any municipality that has questions about how to maintain protections for the LGBTQ+ community in the face of state and federal pushback. What’s important is that local leaders passed these protections because LGBTQ+ constituents needed them, and that hasn’t changed.
Ohio is where I met my husband, where we adopted our son, and where we are building our family.
This is a state where I learned how to be a decent neighbor, a hard worker, and a good father — and where I came out, found support, and built community.
I’m proud to call Ohio home, even in the face of anti-LGBTQ+ policies and legislation. Now we need every municipality in Ohio — both those that have already passed nondiscrimination protections and those that haven’t — to join in opposition to discrimination, opposition to injustice, and opposition to inequity.
The roadmap to equality runs through every city in Ohio.
Let’s get to work.
Dwayne Steward is CEO and executive director of Equality Ohio, a leading statewide LGBTQ+ organization. He lives in Columbus with his husband and son.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: I’m a proud Buckeye. Protections for LGBTQ+ Ohioans like me must be expanded | Opinion
Reporting by Dwayne Steward, Guest columnist / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Dwayne Steward, Guest columnist | USA TODAY Network
