Erie, Pa.--The county executive who opposed a gay and transgender-inclusive anti-discrimination ordinance when it passed last year now has a proposal that would essentially void the measure.

Erie County Executive Rick Schenker, who in 1994 as the president of the Pennsylvania Christian Coalition called homosexuality a “demented and depraved lifestyle,” wants to disband the county’s Human Relations Commission, the body that enforces the ordinance.

“The ordinance becomes, as I understand it, a nonissue if the state and feds take it over,” Schenker told the Erie Times News for an April 7 issue.

There are no protections for lesbians, gays or transgender people in Pennsylvania or federal law.

Schenker is attempting to bypass the ordinance by removing the commission from the county’s budget, dissolving the commission and leaving the measure unenforceable.

Michael Kenton Mahler, an LGBT activist and publisher of Erie Gay News who crusaded for the law, believes that the loss of the commission and, by extension, the measure, would cause great harm to Erie County. He pointed to studies indicating that municipalities with civil rights protections for LGBT people have an easier time attracting and keeping businesses, especially technological firms.

However, said Mahler, the fight is not yet lost. He believes that urging the county executive and commissioners to keep the commission might be an effective way to keep the measure intact.

“It’s possible that, if Schenker chooses to remove the Human Rights Commission from the budget, that County Council could keep it in,” he said. “Therefore, we need to contact both offices.”

Schenker had vowed to veto the ordinance when it passed in February 2002 with both sexual orientation and gender identity included. But the county commissioners voted 6-1 to pass it, with only five votes needed to override a veto. Schenker opted to sign it instead of having his veto bypassed.

Three amendments were added to the bill to get the 6-1 majority. One of the changes excluded crimes like pedophilia from the definition of sexual orientation, while another states that employers are not required to provide domestic partner benefits for non-married LGBT employees. The third clarified the status of the Human Rights Commission.