Olympia Moves To Add Polyamory, Nontraditional Families To Civil-Rights Protections

Olympia, the capital city of Washington state, is advancing a proposed ordinance that would add "family or relationship structure" to the city's civil-rights code, a change supporters say would protect polyamorous and other nontraditional family arrangements from discrimination.

The draft language, shared by city officials, says the protection would cover a wide range of household compositions beyond the traditional nuclear family. It would include, but not be limited to, "the composition of interrelationships within a household, involvement in intimate personal relationships between consenting adults, non-normative and non-nuclear family arrangements, including multi-partner and multi-parent families, blended, (step) families, multi-generational households, single-parents-by-choice, chosen families, and similar configurations."

KOMONews reported that if the ordinance passes, Olympia would be "the first city in Washington state to address the growing number of families with diverse structures."

Why Supporters Back the Proposal

Proponents argue the ordinance would address concrete harms in housing, employment and healthcare. "With issues like this, you constantly find that, not that folks are underground, but it’s hard for folks to come forward about these things because it is a very private thing, and we want them to feel welcome in our community and not ostracized," Olympia City Council Member Robert Vanderpool told KOMONews.

"I think the biggest thing that comes up is housing... it’s hard in a chosen family to put someone on their mortgage," Vanderpool said.

Local leaders say they are working with advocacy groups, including OPEN (Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-Monogamy), to draft the ordinance. OPEN’s executive director, Brett Chamberlain, cited research indicating many people in consensually non-monogamous relationships experience stigma or discrimination — OPEN reports about 60% do — and said roughly 5% of adults are currently in consensually non-monogamous relationships.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Jason Rantz, talk show host and columnist at Seattle Red, said that "This proposal pretends it's about tolerance when it's really about the government elevating a lifestyle choice into a protected class and forcing everyone else to accommodate it."

Opposition And Concerns

Not everyone supports the proposal. Jason Rantz, a conservative radio host and columnist, told Fox News Digital he believes the measure "pretends it's about tolerance when it's really about the government elevating a lifestyle choice into a protected class and forcing everyone else to accommodate it." In an opinion piece, Rantz warned broadening anti-discrimination law to cover personal romantic arrangements could create new legal conflicts for landlords, employers and families.

The city manager told Fox News Digital that staff are preparing a draft ordinance to present to the City Council at a future date. Supporters said they expect a council vote on Feb. 9; if adopted, Olympia would be the first city in Washington state and the fifth in the U.S. to include relationship-structure protections, following Somerville and Cambridge, Massachusetts (2023) and Berkeley and Oakland, California (2024).

Olympia is located in Thurston County, a left-leaning area of Washington state. The proposal has generated debate about the balance between extending civil-rights protections for changing family structures and concerns about the scope and consequences of adding relationship arrangements to protected classes.