Lexington scored 93 out of 100 on ratings sponsored by the national Human Rights Campaign. That compares with a 53 in 2013, the first year the bluegrass community was included in the equality index. The organization ranks cities based on how inclusive local government law, policies, and services are to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities.
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton noted the scoring can have economic ramifications. “Big corporations and medium-sized corporations and other businesses look for that when they’re considering re-locating in another community. They not only look at cost of living, education of the workforce. They look at openness in the government,” said Gorton.
Gorton has established a work group to study the Human Rights Campaign score and make recommendations to raise the score to 100. Craig Cammack, LGBTQ Laison in the mayor’s office, said some government changes could be suggested by the work group. “There’s some things I'm sure that we can work on. Hopefully they will be minor tweaks. That’s what the work group will figure out and make recommendations to the mayor and then we’ll go from there to see what is possible and what may take more time than just immediate changes,” Cammack explained.
This year Lexington celebrated the 20th anniversary of the passing of the state’s first fairness ordinance.
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