<table> </table> As to the 60 gay campers kicked out of the Longview Lake campground last month, I can tell you that the investigation is finished.</p><p>But we may never know whether it was discrimination that led to the eviction, as the mostly female campers suspected.</p><p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t say with clarity (that) it was,&#8221; says Tim Degnan, one of the two gay activists Jackson County officials asked to take an independent look at the evidence.</p><p>But say this for Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders. He took seriously the complaints I told you about last month, launching an inquiry even before the American Civil Liberties Union took interest. (You knew the ACLU would get involved, right?)</p><p>More important, as a result of that review, the county has taken some positive actions. First, campground policies are being changed to make it less likely any group will feel singled out.</p><p>No more will an entire group be evicted because a few members break the rules. Just the jerks will get the boot.</p><p>Second, the county&#8217;s entire workforce (1,600 full-timers) probably will go through diversity training that focuses on more than race, sex and ethnicity &#8212; the extent of past programs, I&#8217;m told &#8212; but also matters of sexual orientation.</p><p>And finally, Jackson could become the first county in the state of Missouri to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, if the County Legislature approves a policy Sanders will propose in the fall.</p><p>That last part is a very big deal &#8212; and sure to cause even more controversy &#8212; so the setting for the first public announcement of it caught me off guard. Sanders aide Calvin Williford invited me to a special briefing Friday to hear how the campground eviction review had turned out, but, like I just did, he buried the lead.</p><p>Gays, after all, are not a protected class under federal discrimination laws. Social conservatives in Congress block any attempt to change that.</p><p>Neither do many states offer those protections. Our two don&#8217;t, but some local governments within them do.</p><p>In Kansas, Lawrence has what are generically called human rights ordinances. Kansas City is one of only four Missouri jurisdictions that have laws making it illegal to discriminate against gays; the others are Columbia, St. Louis and University City.</p><p>What would it mean if Jackson County joins that club, possibly as early as next Jan. 1? According to Williford, it would be illegal anywhere in the unincorporated parts of the county to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation when it comes to housing, employment and public accommodations.</p><p>Top county officials were working on their human rights ordinance months before the incident at Longview Lake, Williford said. But he made it public sooner rather than later in light of something I pointed out in last month&#8217;s column:</p><p>Even if the gay campers were victims of discrimination, they had no legal recourse because the county lacks a human rights ordinance.</p><p>Williford said he found that comment &#8220;irksome&#8221; in light of the behind-the-scenes effort to put together just such an ordinance.</p><p>&#8220;We have this wonderful thing we&#8217;ve been working on, and now it looks like we&#8217;ve got a gun to our head,&#8221; Williford said.</p><p>Sorry if it looks that way, Calvin, but I&#8217;ll take your word for it. You guys were already on top of this and no one forced you into it.</p><p>And I have to guess a gay rights ordinance should play well with many of Sanders&#8217; more liberal constituents, though not all are going to be happy, judging by the many hateful, anonymous comments my previous column provoked. There&#8217;s bound to be plenty of opposition to extending to gays the same rights extended to other victims of discrimination.</p><p>But if you&#8217;re at all fair-minded, you know it&#8217;s the right thing to do.