Some religious leaders in Butler have been spurred to act by the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla.

Following the killing of 49 people and the wounding of 53 more in Pulse, a gay nightclub, by Omar Mateen on June 13, religious officials are making an effort to protect the rights and safety of the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Questioning, and Allied” (LGBTQA) community in Butler.

Cantor Michele Gray-Schaffer of the Congregation B’nai Abraham and Jim Swanson of the Covenant Presbyterian Church, will speak at Thursday’s city council meeting at 7 p.m. to advocate for an anti-discrimination ordinance for Butler.

“It is still legal to discriminate in housing and in jobs, and a vote was taken a few years ago and it did not pass to make it illegal,” Gray-Schaffer said.

“I just feel called after this tragedy, and after attending the candlelight vigil in Pittsburgh on Monday night that I have to do something. I think the city council has not heard from pastors who support this as a moral measure.”

Swanson related the shooting in Orlando to Butler.

“No city or location is exempt from violence or non-violence related to discrimination,” he said.

He also said such an ordinance would affect more than housing and employment.

“A nondiscrimination ordinance in this community would cover a wide range of areas where discrimination could occur such as housing, employment, being served at a restaurant, or being able to join a health club, things like that,” he said.

Such an ordinance was voted down several years ago by council.

City solicitor Jim Coulter explained that ordinance would have meant the city would have had to set up a tribunal system to preside over hearings between, for example, tenants and landlords, which the majority of council members decided was not a city function, but a state function.

“It wasn’t going to be the city government’s role to set up a local tribunal, to have that function,” he said.

Councilwoman Kathy Kline, who voted against the ordinance, said, “Council did not pass it because it was something that really had no teeth in it. It was something that would end up in the state anyway.

“They wanted to form a board making the decisions. If somebody grieved (the decision), it would end up in the state, which is where it’s at now anyway.”

However, she also voiced her distaste for people who discriminate.

“Where our society is today and what a society is today and what a diverse population we have, shame on anybody who wants to discriminate,” she said.

Councilman Richard Schontz is the only other council member who was on the council when that ordinance was voted on. He, along with then-mayor Maggie Stock, voted to pass it.

Schontz said he voted for the ordinance because the laws at that time did not protect these rights.

“I felt that the laws did not target just that type of discrimination. They were too broad. There wasn’t an ordinance that was precise on what we were guarding against.”

Mayor Tom Donaldson said he has “no comment until I hear what they want to talk to us about.”

Gray-Schaffer said she has talked with several pastors who are in agreement with her, some of whom have to remain anonymous because their denominations condemn homosexuality.

Despite some disagreements from denominations, Gray-Schaffer is not deterred.

“We are all created in the image of God, no exceptions,” she said. “That has been my creed. I never saw it any way else. I just so strongly believe that. That’s the intent. It’s no exceptions.”