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The best way for the LGBT rights agenda to advance is for us to pursue projects which enjoy both popular support from the LGBT community and from the general public at large.
For too long, the conservative initiatives of same sex marriage and gays in the military have sucked the oxygen out of the room for the low hanging fruit, for policies which are attainable.
Today the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is holding hearings on an inclusive ENDA, Employment Non Discrimination Act.
Live video available:
http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2009_11_05/2009_11_05.html
Same Sex marriage and the gays in the military have held our movement back for too long, and it is high time we turn that tide.0
We need to reverse that devastating losing trend by building on the crumb of hate crimes protections by passing workplace protections that will benefit tens of millions of LGBT in the flyover.
We need to continue on the basic civil rights agenda by moving on housing protections next.
Once we consolidate a record of success, then we can begin to lay the groundwork to undo the damage that the strategically incompetent marriage movement has wrought.
2 Comments
Of course, it is my understanding that ENDA has managed to throw the “T” portion of the LGBT under the bus.
Yeah, that’s fair I’m sure.
My hope and understanding is that there is support for transgendered inclusion in ENDA.
If there is not, then we need to follow California’s example and enact lesbian and gay protections until the support is there for transgendered protections.
There is no historical case to be made that solidarity is uniting to lose, rather solidarity is when folks sacrifice so that others CAN win.
There is no historical case to be made that nobody should get protections until everyone can. People of color got federal protections before women and women got federal protections before gays got anything anywhere.
If there turns out to be a lack of support for transgendered protections now like there was in 2007, then that is a sign that a different political approach is required to close that deal. Relegating lesbians and gays to discrimination until trans folks find support not acceptable to queers per polling in 2007.
My read is that lesbians and gays have been waiting at the bus stop with fare in hand for 20 years. It seems that transgendered folks decided that the ENDA bus was for them as well around 2002 or so and asked us to hold it for them. Unfortunately, the trans community is still upstairs in bed, a bit short on bus fare, and the trans women haven’t even put their faces on yet.
How about if we catch this bus and trans folks wait for the next one, once they’ve got themselves the fare and are ready to ride the bus?
This gay man has heard nothing since 2007 from the transgendered community on how we can help then to build that support. All I’ve heard is how we’d better not move forward until we can be fully inclusive.
Trans folks have been instrumental in the civil rights struggle since Comptons, but in particular as applies to ENDA, the political work apparently had not been done as of 2007. Perhaps it is complete now and this will not be an issue.
What we need is full suspect class protections for LGBT. Until that happens, anything incremental that passes will leave some protections undone. If we pass job protections, some will be evicted or denied housing, for instance.
Who is to draw the line that says if we don’t include a certain protection, either to a community or a for civil right, we go no further now?