Mar 12, 2010
Democratic Party – Pass ENDA Now Or Lose Gay & Lesbian Dollars & Votes
If it comes from Barney Frank I will believe it when I see it.
Passage of ENDA and the repeal of DADT must happen this year or honestly no Gay or Lesbian will ever support the Democratic Party again. There is no reason for the Gay and Lesbian community to continue giving millions to a party that either cannot or will not pass critical legislation securing our freedoms and protecting us from christian based discrimination and violence.
The recent christian takeover of the Virginia government and subsequent repeal of all protections for Gays and Lesbians makes passage of the Federal ENDA critical to our community.
Chances are very good that the Democratic Party will lose control of the House and Senate after their complete sellout to the heath insurance lobby mandating millions of Americans purchase unregulated and ineffective private health insurance.
So it is critical that Gay and Lesbian protections be passed this year.
Last September, openly gay Representative Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) said the Employment Non-Discrimination Act would likely get a House committee vote in September and a floor vote that fall. Didn’t happen.
And last December, when out Representatives Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) and Jared Polis (D-Colorado) told a gathering of gay leaders that ENDA would pass the House in January, they weren’t making a promise. They were making an educated guess.
What has been happening, of course, has been a contentious partisan fight over a major effort to ensure that most Americans have health care and an urgent push to pass a bill to preserve and create jobs for the country’s growing number of unemployed. Add to that, two major earthquakes in other countries requiring U.S. assistance, one major Democratic loss of a critical Senate seat, and a persistent pushback or roadblock by Republicans on everything from judicial nominees to unemployment checks.
The Senate just Tuesday night was able to finally vote on an emergency measure to simply extend unemployment benefits and several other programs for 30 days until Congress can approve a more permanent measure. The temporary bill was delayed for five days by the refusal of Republican Senator Jim Bunning (Kentucky) to allow a routine vote of unanimous consent.
With this as a backdrop, Frank’s prediction this week is that ENDA will have its vote in the House committee this month. And he said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has assured him it will go swiftly to the floor.
Baldwin gave the same assessment of Pelosi’s commitment to ENDA when she spoke to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund's Leadership Institute last December in San Francisco. Pelosi’s commitment on ENDA, she said, “is unflinching.” She said Pelosi “wants to have very quick movement of the bill from committee to floor, hopefully within a week” of the bill’s passage in committee.
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said Wednesday she is “extremely optimistic” ENDA will get its vote in the House Education and Labor Committee this month.
Keisling said delays last fall could be attributed to a need to make some “language tweaks” and that she is not entirely sure right now what the language will be concerning the so-called bathroom issue. Opponents of the inclusive ENDA legislation – it includes protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity – have often argued that the measure would enable men to use women’s bathrooms.
Frank said Tuesday that there has been a general agreement reached to resolve certain language changes, including on the use of bathrooms. Keisling said she doesn’t know what that language is and that “it might be harmless or it might be horrible.”
“We’ve been strenuously arguing that we don’t need clarification,” said Keisling. “But legislation is too often about compromise.”
Keisling noted that other compromises have included an exemption for military service and a stipulation that the bill does not require an employer to “treat an unmarried couple in the same manner as … a married couple for purposes of employee benefits.”
Keisling said Frank has been “working very hard” on the bill, “and we’ve been working closely with his office.”
“I want to be clear, Congressman Frank’s not saying he wants bathroom language,” said Keisling. “He’s saying they really think we need it to pass.”
“They,” she said, are the variety of Democratic leaders working on passing the bill. And the conclusion is that the clarifications are “not helpful substantively or legally,” she said, “but they say they are helpful politically.”
via The Bay Area Reporter Online | Leaders: ENDA will get House vote this month.
Contact your member of Congress and demand that they pass ENDA immediately or you will cut off the cash and no longer support the Democratic Party. There are third parties that could easily be made viable with the full support of the Gay and Lesbian community.
