In a 12-1 vote, Boston’s city council passed a resolution declaring Boston a sanctuary city for LGBTQ+ people. The resolution was filed by Councilors Julia Mejia and Liz Breadon, Boston’s first openly LGBT women elected to the council, with only Councilor Ed Flynn withholding a vote for it until he learns “more about how the resolution would affect city services and departments,” according to the Boston Globe.
Reports the Globe:
The resolution, while largely symbolic, expressed the city’s commitment to protecting members of the LGBTQIA2s+ community. It also calls on city agencies to not comply with federal or state policies that harm transgender or other LGBTQIA2s+ people.
“Ongoing federal actions — including recent executive orders that undermine LGBTQIA2s+ rights and promote their erasure — have been in direct conflict with the city’s commitment to research-driven, inclusive approaches to public policy,” the councilors wrote in the resolution. …
Mejia said she is working with advocacy groups to craft an ordinance to codify city-wide protections for LGBTQIA2s+ people, and hopes to file it later this year.
“We didn’t file this to check off a box and hang [up] our working boots,” Mejia said Wednesday. “We filed this because it is necessary for the harder, more concrete work that is to come.”
“Sanctuary city” is a politicized term immigration critics on the far right use to criticize Democrat-run cities and their policies on cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts. (Mayor Michelle Wu and other city officials have not embraced the characterization when it comes to the city’s public safety and immigration policies in the past).
But in the legislation, Mejia and Breadon write that “sanctuary policies are a critical tool to ensure that all residents — regardless [of] the identities they may hold — have inalienable human rights and deserve to feel safe, welcome, and supported.”
Read the complete Boston Globe story here.
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