Remember earlier today when Barney Frank reiterated his ENDA values:
I have a very profound difference with people who say we should…I do not think you deny people protection if you can. A sexual orientation-only bill would be very helpful.
Here’s the video in all its impassioned unequal glory.
allstarecho
What an asshole. Blaming everyone that wants the original ENDA, the one that doesn’t leave out Transgender folks and doesn’t have all of the loopholes that still allow discrimination as the new ENDA version does, blaming 270+ LGBT rights organizations for any future lack of support by Democrats?? Fucking jerk.
SeaFlood
I have to agree with you here. And add, it reminds me of a lyric from Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddamn.” Frank is basically asking us to “go slow” — without realizing, THAT is the trouble and it never served anybody.
Matt
“I also think politically that the notion that you don’t do anything until you can do everything is self-defeating.” Oh, I’m in for a world of hurt for saying this, but what the hell: he’s right. ENDA in its purest form sucked; ENDA with the transgender community sliced off and tossed under the bus sucks. But is it better to have nothing, than something that, however sucky, represents more progress in a broad, universal sense, than what we’ve had before? It’s all academic anyway, of course, since W’s about as likely to sign ENDA, with or without transgendered Americans, as he is to drop by my condo this evening with a bouquet of exotic flowers. So all we accomplish now, with a divided Congress that, Dem majority nothwithstanding is pretty much immobilized, is to beat up on our allies, imperfect though they may be, and delight our enemies with our fractured factionalism. Yay us.
commeca
Barney Frank is not a Gay Congressman, he’s an establishment Congressman who happens to be gay. I lost any illusions about The Barn when he trashed Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco for licensing same sex couples and performing their marriages.
Passage of this bill is pure symbolism anyway since the same Bush that vetoed the Insurance for Kids act will still be president. If we’re going to pass a symbolic bill let’s not start by throwing people out of the boat.
mozzer13
If a member of Congress were saying they were going to push for the bill for lesbians only because women’s sexuality isn’t as threatening to the majority in Congress as that of gay men, everyone on here would be having a fucking aneurysm, including Barney Frank. I don’t see why it should be any different for trans folks, especially when they were more up front at the beginning of the movement than virtually anyone else, they just didn’t call it trans back then.
Patrick Y
Wake up. All or nothing strategies often end with .. nothing. Real families will be helped, will be protected under the law if ENDA is passed. Getting angry at Frank because he’s having to make difficult compromises with difficult people is misguided. Passing an imperfect ENDA is definitely better than passing no ENDA. Being disappointed at the exclusion of transgender folk is understandable but expressing that disappointment by abandoning ENDA altogether is self-destructive. The wise path is to support an imperfect ENDA now (though Bush will veto) in order to secure a precedent and a foundation upon which to build and expand later.
Bill Perdue
No Patrick, you wake up.
You slept through the part where we found out that the original version of ENDA was just as good at eliminating homobigotry as earlier civil rights laws have been at terminating racism, sexism, etc. They’re relatively toothless and put too much of the legal and financial burden on the victims. Still, we need the original version very badly.
You were snoozing when Frank, Pelosi and the Democrats relegated a segment of our community to permanent second class citizenship and went on to gut what was left of the bill. You said “All or nothing strategies often end with … nothing.†The gutted carcass of ENDA is just that, nothing. Read the Lambda Legal explanation of what Frank and Pelosi did. Then you’ll be able to understand the firestorm of condemnation against them.
Every element of the GLBT equation loses on this one. The only ones who stand to gain are the homobigots who take pleasure in refusing to hire us and pleasure in firing us. They’re going to save billions because we’re all going to be kept as second class citizens. No doubt they’ll find a way to let Barney, Nancy and the other Democrats know how grateful they are.
Mrs Patrick Campbell
To hell with this fugly. We just saw a picture of Kobe Bryant and developed a case of ‘the vapors’.
Are there any nude photos of Kobe?
Discuss!
zeami99
Barney Frank has long done much good for the gay community, and trashing him is something he doesn’t deserve, whether you agree with him or not. He has been effective for gay rights over many years. It is a shame gays are so unfair to each other
Paul Raposo
This is Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell all over again. Fifteen years later the Dems still haven’t done anything to get rid of that ridiculous law and 15 years from now, trans people still won’t have Federal protections against discrimination, even if ENDA passes.
Mr. B
Well said, Bill Perdue.
All of you who are clamoring for the “trannies” (ugh) to stop ruining it for everyone are missing the point that the exclusion of gender identity is a loss for the WHOLE LGBT community.
I know it’s easy for some folks who have an easier time blending into the straight mainstream to forget, but think of all the butches and nellies who get static all the time. You know, the folks who can’t as easily pigeonhole that same-sex partner and pass as “normal.” In the end, it really has less to do with people’s bedfellows (a “straight-acting” gay man or a femme lesbian is still at risk for discrimination, but much less so) and more to do with the gendered status quo.