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DAN OLSON: Pat Gamble says that her office hears from up to 500 people a year claiming that they have been discriminated against because they are gay or lesbian. Gamble works for the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in Saint Paul.

PAT GAMBLE: We get a lot of calls involving harassment of a person because they are or are perceived to be, in some cases, gay or lesbian. Most of the calls that we get involve employment, and that's rather typical of most of the calls that we get generally. Probably 80% or so involve employment rather than housing or education.

DAN OLSON: The callers, Gamble says, complain that they have been fired, or in some other way mistreated at work because of their sexual preference. But the State Human Rights Act does not include people who are gay and lesbian as a protected group under state law, and that is as it should be, argues Tom Prichard.

TOM PRICHARD: We are opposed to granting special class status to gay and lesbian people because we believe that those statuses are generally or traditionally applied to groups based on immutable traits like race, sex, national origin, things of that sort. Whereas we find homosexuality is a lifestyle, it's a behavior, and we don't feel it's appropriate to give special legal protections to people based on a lifestyle.

DAN OLSON: Tom Prichard is executive director of the Berean League, a group based in Roseville, which promotes what it calls traditional family values. The matter of protection against discrimination for people who are gay and lesbian came up in Moorhead a few years ago. A Citizens Advisory panel created by the Morehead City Council recommended that the city adopt an ordinance protecting gay and lesbian people from discrimination. The Morehead City Council and Morehead mayor Morris Lanning rejected the recommendation. Lanning argues that the human rights ordinance, now on the books in Morehead, protects any and all who would claim discrimination.

MORRIS LANNING: Personally, I have a problem with listing categories. I don't categorizing human beings. First of all, I think that's a mistake. And the minute you start listing categories, you're excluding somebody. And I don't like an ordinance that excludes people. I want it to include everyone. And people are discriminated against in our society for a wide range of reasons. And I would like our ordinance to cover all of those reasons.

DAN OLSON: For a time, Duluth had an ordinance which identified gay and lesbian people as a protected group. The language was repealed in the early 1980s, after a successful organizing effort led by a group called Duluth Citizens for Decency Through Law. The group gathered enough signatures on a petition to put the matter to a vote. Duluth City Council member Mark Steen was one of the organizers.

MARK STEEN: Homosexuality is not a lifestyle. That's really a misnomer. Homosexuality is an act. Legally, if you look at the law, it's the act of sodomy. And for someone to desire special protection or special privileges, in fact, under the law, because they engage in a particular sexual act, we maintain, is simply inappropriate.

DAN OLSON: To one degree or another, the arguments raised by Duluth council member Mark Steen, Moorhead mayor Morris Lanning, and the Berean League's Tom Prichard, have struck a chord with local and state officials. Former Duluth City Council member Meg Bye had served three terms, and proposed that the Duluth human rights ordinance should protect gay and lesbian people.

She lost her re-election bid due in part by believes to her support of sexual preference as a protected status. Bye draws two conclusions from the experience. She doesn't believe that office holders lose their jobs based on a single issue. But Bye argues that any elected official seeking protection for a minority group faces an uphill battle with voters.

MEG BYE: For protection of minority groups, of groups who are not in the majority, you very seldom ever get that done by the majority voting to do that because it is not in the best interest of the majority unless they can be convinced that it is somehow in their best interest. They are not going to be likely to go into the voters booth where it is dark and no one sees them, and vote to do something that they may feel reduces their ability to maintain their status in the world.

DAN OLSON: Moorhead resident Mark Chocola believes that most people in his community would not discriminate against gay and lesbians, but some of them would. Chocola is a founding member of a gay and lesbian community organization in Moorhead. He does not agree with Mayor Lanning that the Moorhead law protects all people from discrimination.

MARK CHOCOLA: Now, I think that that's very nice to say, but as someone said to me, there's a general principle that when you try to cover everybody, you end up covering nobody. And legislation of this sort is designed to pick out categories of people who are targeted, targeted for unfair treatment. And it seems to me very, very clear that the category of being gay or lesbian is, in our region, targeted by some people to treat people unfairly.

DAN OLSON: Ann DeGroot believes that most people are still uncomfortable with the prospect that a neighbor, co-worker or family member might be gay or lesbian. But she agrees with Chocola that most would not discriminate against them. DeGroot is Director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council in Minneapolis.

She believes that opponents of protection for gay and lesbian people, including the organizers of the repeal effort in Saint Paul, are playing on voters fears. The times, DeGroot argues, cause people to worry about their jobs specifically, and the state of the country and the world generally.

ANN DEGROOT: People are losing their jobs. People are losing homes. There are more and more people on the streets. It's a very frightening time for people. And the group who wants to repeal this is very adept at saying, if you allow this to happen, you are going to lose out because these people are going to get what you have. And that is not true, but that is absolutely terrifying.

DAN OLSON: Ann DeGroot, the Director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council. She believes the Saint Paul vote on the sexual preference provision in the city's human rights ordinance is a litmus test for the state. DeGroot believes Saint Paul's population is representative of the state population, and if voters reject the sexual preference provision there, she believes it will take longer than she had predicted for the state to accept sexual orientation as a status, which needs protection from discrimination. I'm Dan Olson.