Seattle could soon protect non-monogamous relationships under civil rights law

This story originally appeared on Them.

Seattle City Council’s Housing, Arts and Civil Rights Committee voted unanimously to further a bill that would extend civil rights protections to people in non-traditional relationship structures at a Wednesday afternoon meeting, council member Alexis Mercedes Rinck confirmed in an email to Them.

Rinck is the sponsor of the legislation, which would amend sections of the Seattle Municipal Code. If passed, the law would change the definition of sexual orientation to “recognize genders outside the gender binary, recognize pansexuality and asexuality as orientations, and include consensual relationships with multiple partners as an element of attitudes, preferences, and practices pertaining to sexual orientation.” These protections would apply to the areas of “employment, housing, business licensure, places of public accommodation, park usage, bias-free policing” and would be overseen by the city’s Office for Civil Rights.

All three members of the committee — council members Eddie Lin, Dionne Foster and Rinck — voted in favor of the proposed changes, she confirmed. Per the city government’s website, bills become law through a ten-step process, with a committee vote being the seventh step. Rinck said that the ordinance will be voted on at the next full council meeting on September 15.

In December, the Seattle Human Rights Commission, a part of the city government, sent a letter to both the mayor and the Seattle City Council urging them to take up the proposed legislation. Calling the legislation a “necessary and timely” evolution of Seattle’s commitment to inclusivity, the letter pointed out that the current legal framework “was largely built at a time when only a narrow definition of family and relationship was recognized.”

“As a result, many Seattle residents remain vulnerable to real and material harm,” the letter continued. “People in multi-parent or multi-partner families, multi-generational households, chosen families, single parents, intentionally single individuals, and those in consensually nonmonogamous, asexual, or aromantic relationships continue to face discrimination in housing, employment, and public life simply because their family structures fall outside outdated norms.”

The letter was co-signed by the Seattle LGBTQ Commission and the Seattle Renters’ Commission.

Nine cities nationwide have passed legislation to protect non-traditional family structures, according to the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-Monogamy (OPEN). The cities include Cambridge, Mass., Somerville, Mass., Berkeley, Calif., Oakland, Calif., Olympia, Wash., Portland, Ore., West Hollywood, Calif., and Astoria, Ore. Hazel Park, Mich., became the ninth city in the nation and the first city in the Great Lakes state to adopt such an ordinance, when the city council passed protections for polyamorous couples in June, per MLive.

Should the Seattle City Council vote to make the Northwest city the 10th in the nation to protect nontraditional family structures, the legislation would take effect in 2027, per Capitol Hill Seattle Blog.

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