The Gillette City Council has voted to begin the process of scrapping the city’s malicious harms ordinance, otherwise known as its “hate crime ordinance.”
In a 4-3 vote Tuesday, the council directed City Attorney Sean Brown to draft language to repeal the ordinance. That document would undergo three readings before it is officially approved.
The council in 2023 passed the controversial ordinance, which criminalizes threatening or harming a person or damaging their property based on that individual’s “race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, disability, or age.”
That measure made such offenses a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of $750 and up to 90 days in jail.
Gillette’s ordinance proved controversial during its passage two years ago, sparking outcry from community members who felt it would infringe on free speech. Proponents argued, however, the measure makes Gillette more inclusive and welcoming to outsiders.
‘Big Old Wound’
Councilmember Jim West was a part of the council in 2023 when it passed the ordinance. He voted against approving the directive at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
West told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday that the community discourse at the time showed him why such measures are necessary in his city. Council members who were in favor of the measure often faced death threats and required a police escort to exit the council chambers after meetings, he said.
“It was an amazingly eye opening, controversial time when we started the process of doing this malicious harm ordinance, and it really opened my eyes to how much anger we have at each other in just right here in our own community,” West said via phone. “At first, I was kind of on the sidelines with it.
"As you know everything is three readings, so ‘let's get it through a reading and then see where it goes,’ and it got ugly.”
West said the ordinance became conflated with other hot button topics at a time of heightened political polarization, as the nation looked ahead to a presidential election. As heated debate swirled, the ordinance kept some members of the community safe, he said.
“There's a lot of people in our community that, this is horrible to kind of say it this way, but they feel safer with it,” he said of the policy.
West likened the ordinance to domestic violence laws, which add elevated penalties on top of existing punishments for assault and battery. He said the timing of the council’s latest decision raises questions given that the matter was settled two years ago.
“I don't understand how you can say on one hand ‘a terrorist group or a man that beats women or a rapist, those people should get extra charges because their crime is extra malicious,’” West said. “They can support that, but for whatever reason, they can't support this and if you read our ordinance, it doesn't exclude or single out anybody at all, and that was one of the important things to me when we wrote it.”
“All it's really doing is it's going to open up this big old wound in our community and drive division in between this even farther than it already is,” he added.
‘Get Away From Hate’
Councilmember Jack Clary, who joined the council in January, voted in favor of approving the directive at Tuesday’s meeting. He told Cowboy State Daily he based that decision on a desire to remove hate from his community after seeing it so prevalently displayed in other places throughout the country.
“It's pretty simple,” Clary said via phone. “I've done a lot of thinking about that, and I see that the word hate is going across the United States like rapid fire and for myself, we don't need to continue that here in Gillette. We need to, if anything, turn that around and get away from hate.”
Clary said he views the ordinance as drawing attention to hate crimes, which only emboldens those who commit them. He also questioned how legally sound the definition of hate could be given its broad application.
“I have not seen anybody tell me how you can determine in their minds what is hate,” he said. “If you commit murder or assault, there's penalties for that. There's laws for that, so I don't see how that's even a tool to use.”
The council member added in the two years since the ordinance’s approval, it has never been used. Instead of rooting out hate, Clary said “all it does is divide people.”
“We have enough hate in this world to go around for every one of us and I think we need to get away from it,” he said. “We need to take that word away and not utilize it.”
“I want to make this a peaceful environment,” he added. “I don't want to make it a division.”
Other Ordinances
Four Wyoming cities currently have similar hate crime ordinances on the books, including Cheyenne, Jackson, Laramie and Casper.
Cheyenne’s measure, passed in 2022, creates a misdemeanor for such a crime but does not outline punishments.
Casper in 2022 also created an ordinance linking discrimination penalties to “offenses against the person” such as physical attacks and employment discrimination. It carries a maximum fine of up to $750 and six months in jail.
Jackson’s 2023 “non-discrimination ordinance” extends to housing accommodations and service in public places. That measure outlines that discrimination can be based on the perception of the victim “even if that perception is incorrect.”
Laramie in 2024 passed a similar measure, which includes language defining discrimination as targeting an individual’s “gender related identity, expression or behavior, regardless of the individual’s sex at birth” or their sexual orientation.
Jackson Walker can be reached at walker@cowboystatedaily.com.
