Those who’ve been following the controversy swirling around discrimination in the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act can rest easy this week…not because the House successfully approved an amendment guaranteeing transgendered individuals the same rights as their gay, straight and lesbian peers, but because an ENDA vote isn’t on the horizon this week. At all.
Instead–as PageOneQ points out–look for the House to busy itself with the task of “designating October 2007 as ‘Country Music Month’ and naming a Miami courthouse, a United States Border Patrol station in California, and Post Offices in New Jersey and Michigan.”
“House calendar for coming week does not include ENDA vote” [PageOneQ]
adamblast
Of course it’s over. And transjacked is exactly the word for it.
Supporters of an inclusive-ENDA-or-bust have successfully killed national gay rights legislation for the forseeable future.
They created a lose-lose situation for those politicians who are actually on our side. We’ll be lucky to see *anything* happen now on the national stage, even if we get a Democratic president.
praenomenal
adamblast: “They” “Them” The others…. Your implications disgust me. You want to place the blame on the trans folks be my guest but I am getting sick and F**cking tired of sitting here day after day watching you and Leland place all the woes of the gay community at our feet.
You want to be angry, feel free. But blaming transgender people for fighting for their rights, that is just childish.
The reality is and has always been that it is politics. Blame the people who refuse to stand up and say that right is right. People more concerned with creating a wedge issue and worry more about the next election than actually legislating.
We did nothing to you, we did nothing that you would not have done. We stood up and said, “this is wrong” and it is. If you honestly dont feel that rights should be for all, or even if you feel that we should have shut up and watched the crippled ENDA sail thru then you have another thing coming.
No one will ever tell me I should sit by and wait.
Leland Frances
I don’t know exactly what YOU did, praenomenal, but ENDA United DID and ARE DOING something to me and every other gay man and lesbian in the US. They are demanding that people in Congress vote AGAINST a gay version of ENDA. That is, even if Tammy Baldwin’s noble attempt to add Ts back into it by form of amendment fails and the remaining bill COULD pass, they are demanding that it be KILLED.
At that point it is not to be confused with some imaginary parlimentary maneuver; no “if we pull Lever 1 and don’t get anything we’ll pull Lever 2 and get EVERYTHING.” If they succeed, THEY will kill job protections for everyone in at least 30 states —– even as virtually NONE of them work where THEY don’t already HAVE LGB AND T job protection such as Mara Kiesling and Matt Foreman who work in D.C. which has protections—they would be giving up NOTHING they’re asking millions of others to give up.
They’ve already had some success:
“The decision by Kucinich and his three Democratic colleagues to vote against the gay-only version of ENDA in committee came at a time when a coalition of more than 300 national and state gay and transgender advocacy groups is calling on Congress to oppose any version of the bill that excludes transgender protections.
Kucinich told the Blade he was undecided over whether to vote against a gay-only version of the bill on the House floor if the Baldwin amendment loses.
But his and the other three Democrats’ decision to vote “no†in committee raises the question of whether other gay-supportive Democrats would take the UNUSUAL STEP OF JOINING HOUSE GOP OPPONENTS of ENDA by voting no and defeating the bill when it reaches the House floor.”
– http://www.washingtonblade.com/2007/10-26/news/national/11444.cfm
Bill Perdue
The real motives behind the gutting of the real ENDA by the rightwing Democrats are glaringly obvious when the methodology Pelosi and Frank used to shove it through Congress is examined.
On a measure of this importance it’s a given that discussion and consensus building are required to avoid deeply bitter divisions. No public discussions were held, just secret ones. The liberal (but very rich) leader of the House of Greed and the Quisling Frank decided not take a open approach to the question because they knew they didn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of winning. Instead they had backroom meetings. They correctly concluded that most Republicans and a very large number of Democrats were either bigots and/or they wanted a toothless bill, a bill that excluded transgendered people because that’s what the employers who pay their campaign bills want.
If it were a monster movie we’d call it “Son of DOMA, the Revenge of Barney.â€
The Democrats and Republicans are pandering to bosses who hate the real ENDA because they’d have to pay fair wages and benefits, and they support DOMA so they won’t have to treat our spouses like spouses. They get a free ride on wages, benefits and spousal benefits. They literally mint their own money underpaying us and denying us benefits based on gender identity. They only way they could make more money is by merging with Halliburton.
Thanks to Frank and Pelosi the bosses got what they wanted. What we got was a notice, an edict from on high directing us to lie down on the tracks and get run over like good little sheeple. Forget your rights, they told us, forget the union movements struggle for full equality on the job, forget your own communities and do as you’re told. And most of all, they said, join us in picking a sacrificial scapegoat to throw to the wolves. It’s a mark of respect for our movement that only a few spineless reactionaries did. You know them by their new found love for the initials GLB, for their rabid rants about ‘Mad Tranny Disease’ and because of their decided list rightward.
Then the Quislings got the shock of their lives. Slack jawed, they watched in utter disbelief as their authority and influence collapsed under the weight of an overwhelming and resolute rejection of their treachery. Frank warned us that there would be ‘consequences’ if the GLBT communities crossed him that he’d get even. The unseemly rush to get the fatally crippled Democrat version of ENDA through Congress is his petulant payback.
Their goal all along, in spite of Bush’s promise to veto, was a high-handed coup d’état to gut the effectiveness of the real ENDA because, to put it simply and accurately, we’re not the ones who pay their bills and call the tune.
Quisling, Vidkun (1887-1945) (kw z´l ng) A Norwegian politician, whose collaboration with the Nazis during World War II made his name synonymous with traitor….
praenomenal
Bill, Makes me think of the song Patriot Games.
Kit G
I’m not sure that people who are arguing in favor of the current version of ENDA realize that it wasn’t just the “T” (gender identity) protections that were stripped out – the protections for ANY religiously affiliated organization were extended.
Also, the requirements regarding domestic partnerships being given equal benefits was stripped out – that directly affects queer (and not trans) people.
Finally, the only people that this bill would protect are gender-conforming queers – and as many of my friends can attest, they are both queer and non-gender conforming. A butch woman or an effeminate gay man could still be fired under the new ENDA, and the employer just has to say it’s related to their gender identity/expression – that’s not protected anymore (even though really, they’re firing someone based on their perceived sexual orientation, based on stereotypes of gays and lesbians). Some would say protections for gender non-conforming people already exist, based on the Price-Waterhouse case, but that’s exactly the point — ENDA needs “to establish in express statutory language what we believe is the teaching of the Price Waterhouse case.” Furthermore, in the years since that case was decided, the Supreme Court has become more and more conservative – thus ruling against this precedent.
At any rate, my point is simply this: by excluding gender identity, you are not just excluding transgendered individuals; you are excluding ALL gender-non-conforming individuals – which includes a large number of the gay and lesbian community that HR3685 claims to protect.