(a) The County Council finds that discrimination because of race, color, religious creed, ancestry, national origin, age, sex, marital status, disability, genetic status, presence of children, family responsibilities, source of income, sexual orientation, or gender identity adversely affects the health, welfare, peace, and safety of the community. Persons subject to discrimination suffer unemployment and under employment resulting in low family income, overcrowded housing, poor health conditions, antisocial behavior, poverty, and lack of hope, injuring the public welfare, placing a burden upon the public treasury to ameliorate the conditions thus produced and creating conditions which endanger the public peace and order. Montgomery County’s policy is to foster equal opportunity for all without regard to race, color, religious creed, ancestry, national origin, sex, marital status, age, disability, presence of children, family responsibilities, source of income, sexual orientation, gender identity, or genetic status and strictly in accord with their individual merits as human beings.
(b) The prohibitions in this article are substantially similar, but not necessarily identical, to prohibitions in federal and state law. The intent is to assure that a complaint filed under this article may proceed more promptly than possible under either federal or state law. It is not County policy, however, to create a duplicative or cumulative process to those existing under similar or identical state or federal laws. Once a complaint is fully adjudicated under a similar or identical state or federal law, the complaint should not be reprocessed under this article if the effect is duplicative or cumulative. (1969 L.M.C., ch. 33, § 1; 1972 L.M.C., ch. 21, § 1; 1977 L.M.C., ch. 30, § 1; 1978 L.M.C., ch. 6, § 1; 1984 L.M.C., ch. 26, § 1; 2000 L.M.C., ch. 36, § 3; 2001 L.M.C., ch. 9, § 1; 2004 L.M.C., ch. 3, § 1; 2007 L.M.C., ch. 18, § 1.)