Step Forward for Gay Rights - how awful that this wasn't ALREADY done!
I'm not sure how I feel about Barney Frank and others jettisoning the transgender provision though. I know they're doing it to get a victory somewhere, but it's a matter of principle. How can you ask for anti-discrimination in one area by actively discriminating in another? And aren't transgenders already made to feel like the lowest on the totem pole in the queer community?
I can't wait to hear criddic defend daddy Bush on this one. Do we really need more proof that a lot of Republicans are hateful little biggots?
New York Times
November 9, 2007
Editorial
An Overdue Step for Equal Justice
With its vote on Wednesday in favor of a bill to outlaw discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation, the House scored a significant, if long overdue, breakthrough for equality and fairness. The Senate should now pass its own bill, and President Bush should sign this guarantee into law.
The House bill’s passage owes much to the diligent efforts of Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the measure’s chief sponsor, and fellow Democrats Steny Hoyer, Tammy Baldwin and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Truly, though, the victory was more than 30 years in the making. The Employment Nondiscrimination Act is the latest version of a bill that two former Democratic representatives from New York, Edward Koch and Bella Abzug, first introduced in 1974.
Protecting the employment rights of gay people no longer seems as bold as it did then. Americans have come a long way in accepting gay rights, and some 20 states already have adopted similar laws. Despite this progress, a federal law is still very much needed, since there remain 30 states that have not acted to prevent gay men, lesbians and bisexuals from being denied jobs or promotions simply because of who they are.
Winning a majority in the House required a painful decision by the bill’s sponsors to jettison language extending the prohibition against employment discrimination to transgender individuals. As a result, some gay rights groups opposed the final bill.
We sympathize with the groups’ sense of injustice, but disagree heartily as to strategy. Transgender people should be protected from discrimination, and we hope they soon will be. It would have been regrettable, however, had the sponsors refused to compromise, and as a result, lost the chance to extend basic civil rights to the millions of Americans who would be covered by the current bill.
Throughout American history, civil rights have been achieved in incremental steps. The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, barred race discrimination in public accommodations, an enormous step forward at the time. It wasn’t until the next year that Congress protected voting rights in a separate bill.
The Employment Nondiscrimination Act now moves to the Senate, where Senator Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, is planning to introduce the same bill. In 2007, the idea that no American should face workplace discrimination because of his or her sexual orientation should appeal across party lines. Disappointingly, however, only 35 Republicans voted for the House bill, and President Bush is threatening a veto.
The reasons the White House has given for opposing the bill — that it would be too burdensome on businesses and that it would lead to too much litigation — echo the ones given by opponents of every previous civil rights bill to pass Congress in the past 50 years or so. That parallel should make Mr. Bush and other opponents reconsider whether they want to be on the side of bigotry, and on the wrong side of history.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/opinion/09fri1.html?hp
Edited By Akash on 1194646299
I can't wait to hear criddic defend daddy Bush on this one. Do we really need more proof that a lot of Republicans are hateful little biggots?
New York Times
November 9, 2007
Editorial
An Overdue Step for Equal Justice
With its vote on Wednesday in favor of a bill to outlaw discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation, the House scored a significant, if long overdue, breakthrough for equality and fairness. The Senate should now pass its own bill, and President Bush should sign this guarantee into law.
The House bill’s passage owes much to the diligent efforts of Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the measure’s chief sponsor, and fellow Democrats Steny Hoyer, Tammy Baldwin and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Truly, though, the victory was more than 30 years in the making. The Employment Nondiscrimination Act is the latest version of a bill that two former Democratic representatives from New York, Edward Koch and Bella Abzug, first introduced in 1974.
Protecting the employment rights of gay people no longer seems as bold as it did then. Americans have come a long way in accepting gay rights, and some 20 states already have adopted similar laws. Despite this progress, a federal law is still very much needed, since there remain 30 states that have not acted to prevent gay men, lesbians and bisexuals from being denied jobs or promotions simply because of who they are.
Winning a majority in the House required a painful decision by the bill’s sponsors to jettison language extending the prohibition against employment discrimination to transgender individuals. As a result, some gay rights groups opposed the final bill.
We sympathize with the groups’ sense of injustice, but disagree heartily as to strategy. Transgender people should be protected from discrimination, and we hope they soon will be. It would have been regrettable, however, had the sponsors refused to compromise, and as a result, lost the chance to extend basic civil rights to the millions of Americans who would be covered by the current bill.
Throughout American history, civil rights have been achieved in incremental steps. The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, barred race discrimination in public accommodations, an enormous step forward at the time. It wasn’t until the next year that Congress protected voting rights in a separate bill.
The Employment Nondiscrimination Act now moves to the Senate, where Senator Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, is planning to introduce the same bill. In 2007, the idea that no American should face workplace discrimination because of his or her sexual orientation should appeal across party lines. Disappointingly, however, only 35 Republicans voted for the House bill, and President Bush is threatening a veto.
The reasons the White House has given for opposing the bill — that it would be too burdensome on businesses and that it would lead to too much litigation — echo the ones given by opponents of every previous civil rights bill to pass Congress in the past 50 years or so. That parallel should make Mr. Bush and other opponents reconsider whether they want to be on the side of bigotry, and on the wrong side of history.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/opinion/09fri1.html?hp
Edited By Akash on 1194646299