A handful of Virginia Senate Republicans and Democrats agreed on something today: LGBT people deserve protections if they work for the state and they shouldn’t be discriminated against when trying to find a place to live. S.B. 12 would add “sexual orientation and gender identity” to the list of protected classes in state employment. Currently, someone who works for the state could be fired for being gay, at least if Gov. McAuliffe hadn’t signed an executive order providing those protections. The committee then voted in favor of the bill, 9-4 with three abstentions.

Sen. Wexton’s S.B. 67 , which would expand protections in housing for LGBT Virginians, was before the same committee for the ninth year in a row.