This past Wednesday, the city council of Chicago had gathered for a meeting to study if they should reserve municipal contracts to help LGBTQ+ businesses due to facing discrimination, similar to businesses owned by women and people of color.
But, according to the Chicago Tribune, this meeting did not go to well in the eyes of Mayor Lori Lightfoot because there were many offensive remarks made towards the LGBTQ+ community while the matter was being discussed by the council.
According to LGBTQ+ Nation, Alderman Walter Burnett Jr. said that he worries some business owners would take advantage of this and pretend to be LGBTQ+ just to get the contract from the city for their businesses. Also, he even went as far to reference the 2007 film called, " I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" Starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James, in which two straight friends get married just for financial benefits. He even claimed that most LGBTQ+ business owners are white men who don't need the help as much as people of color and women do.
Before the end of this meeting, she had closed it out to say that the comments that she heard during the meeting were very, "disturbing" and it came off in a "offensive nature".
She also goes on to say that she was disturbed that a council member from the black community (Alderman Walter Burnett Jr.) would make comments like this towards the gay community when they come from a community that gets mistreated in society as well.
Also, her response to his worries were that the "pie" of contracts is so big that everyone could get a piece, so no one has to worry about putting one community at a disadvantage over this.
Lightfoot also went on to say, "Our children are watching. Please choose your words carefully in this body. We are leaders. People look to us, They will take our word seriously, as they should, and I will just say be careful in how you express yourself."
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