ENDA VOTE TALLY: Total was 235-184; bill passed and moves to U.S. Senate

By Party:
Democrats 200-25
Republicans 35-159

Republicans Voting in Favor

Biggert (R-13, IL)
Bono (R-45, CA)
Campbell (R-48, CA)
Castle (R-DE)
Davis, Tom (R-11, VA)
Dent (R-15, PA)
Diaz-Balart, L (R-21, CA)
Diaz-Balart, M (R-25, CA)
Dreier (R-26, CA)
English (R-3, PA)
Flake (R-6, AZ)
Fossella (R-13, NY)
Frelinghuysen (R-11, NJ)
Gerlach (R-6, PA)
Gilchrest (R-1, MD)
Hobson (R-7, OH)
Kirk (R-10, IL)
Knollenberg ((R-9, MI)
Kuhl (NY) (R-29, NY)
LoBiondo (R-2, NJ)
McCotter (R-11, MI)
McCrery (R-4, LA)
McHugh (R-23, NY)
Miller (R-10, MI)
Platts (R-19, PA)
Porter (R-3, NV)
Pryce (R-15, OH)
Ramstad (R-3, MN)
Reichert (R-8, WA)
Ros-Lehtinen (R-18, FL)
Ryan (R-1, WI)
Saxton (R-3, NJ)
Shays (R-4, CT)
Tiberi (R-12, OH)
Walden (R-2, OR)

Democrats Voting Against ENDA

Barrow (D-12, GA)
Berry (D-1, AR)
Clarke* (D-11, NY)
Cramer (D-5, AL)
Davis (D-7, AL)
Davis, Lincoln (D-4, TN)
Edwards (D-D-17, TX)
Gordon (D-6, TN)
Holt* (D-12, NJ)
Lampson (D-22, TX)
Lipinski (D-3, IL)
Marshall (D-8, GA)
McIntyre (D-7, NC)
Melancon ((D-3, LA)
Michaud* (D-2, ME)
Nadler* (D-8, NY)
Rahall (D-3, WV)
Ross ((D-4, AR)
Shuler (D-11, NC)
Skelton (D-4, MO)
Tanner (D-8, TN)
Taylor ((D-4, MS)
Towns* ((D-10, NY)
Velazquez* (D-12, NY)
Weiner* (D-9, NY)

* indicates that “no” vote was likely because “gender identity” (pro-transgender) language was not included

 Today’s corporate employees are more likely to be fired or punished for OPPOSING homosexuality than for “being gay.” In 2005, Matt Barber was fired by Allstate in 2005 after writing a column opposing homosexuality. A staffer at Human Rights Campaign, the powerful homosexual group now crusading for the federal ‘ENDA Our Freedom’ bill, “reported” Barber’s column to an Allstate staffer, leading to Barber’s firing. Call Congress today at 202-224-3121, or go to www.congress.org, to urge your Representative to oppose ENDA, HR 3685.

NOTE TO READERS: Proposed amendments to H.R. 3685, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) approved by the Rules Committee for a vote on the House floor — probably tomorrow — do little to address the bill’s core problem: it tramples on the rights of Christian and moral-minded businessmen by creating new federal employment rights based on aberrant sex (or at least the inclination toward homosexuality/bisexuality). AFTAH released the following media advisory today:

Americans For Truth
http://www.americansfortruth.org/

November 6, 2007

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631

Americans For Truth Says ENDA, H.R. 3685, Would Lead to Religious Persecution

Christian Newswire. NAPERVILLE, Illinois — Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera today urged Christian, Muslim and other moral-minded Americans to “wake up to the tremendous threat that the ‘ENDA Our Freedom’ Bill, H.R. 3685 (Employment Nondiscrimination Act), poses to their religious and First Amendment freedoms.” H.R. 3685 could be debated on the House floor today. [It now appears the vote will be Wednesday, Nov. 7.]

See Americans For Truth’s paper, “14 Good Reasons to Oppose HR 3685, the ‘ENDA Our Freedom’ Bill.”  Call Congress at 202-224-3121 or go to www.congress.org.

“In an era when homosexuals are being hired – not fired – for “being gay” — and when Christians are already being punished or fired by corporations like Allstate for opposing homosexuality, ENDA would lead to further harassment of faith-motivated employees by creating federal ‘rights’ based on homosexuality and bisexuality,” LaBarbera said.

He offered this example as to how ENDA would codify discrimination: “Take an orthodox Jewish entrepreneur who owns a large day care center. He can now factor in his morality about homosexuality as a sin. (He rejects the idea of innate, innocuous “sexual orientation.”) Under ENDA, if his company were to grow to 15 or more employees, he would lose his right to consider his own religious and moral beliefs in hiring/firing decisions. A bisexual with good credentials who does not get hired might sue him for “discrimination.” (If he’s an outspoken pro-marriage advocate, he might be targeted for a “gay” lawsuit.) The government’s politically correct view of homosexuality could force this man, and hundreds of thousands like him, to violate their conscience. It’s Big Government with an amoral twist and, incidentally, a homosexual activist lawyer’s dream.”

To understand the inherent conflict between “gay rights” and religious freedom, LaBarbera pointed to lesbian Georgetown professor Chai Feldblum’s 2005 Beckett Fund presentation, “Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion.” Unlike most homosexual activists, Feldblum at least recognizes that religious citizens have a valid moral claim in opposing homosexuality, yet she asserts that homosexuals also have a “moral” claim for their “civil rights” (including same-sex “marriage”). She calls the conflict between those two claims a “zero-sum” game.

“Feldblum says her ‘morality’ outweighs that of traditionalists. I would strongly disagree, seeing that this nation was founded by people seeking religious freedom. ENDA would take away Christians’ and others’ right to stand up for Biblical morality and live by the dictates of their own moral conscience,” LaBarbera said. 

Matt Barber lost his job at Allstate due to pro-homosexual activism. He says it’s a canard that Christians are “focusing too much” on this issue. Why do some Christians feel guilty about opposing a homosexual lobby that is so brazen it now openly promotes homosexual activity as normal to innocent, young children? (See page from “King and King” children’s book below.)

Folks, my good friend Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues at Concerned Women for America and Americans For Truth Board Member, is right on in this excellent essay rebutting the increasingly common complaint that Christians are focusing too much on homosexuality. 

I find it curious at this juncture in American history when the homosexual lobby is at the zenith of its power — and on the verge of passing an oppressive, sweeping federal bill creating special workplace privileges based on people’s inclination toward aberrant sex — that Christians of all people would urge a de facto public policy and cultural retreat in opposing that movement.

Why are so many people of faith riddled with guilt in opposing a sin-based movement that threatens everybody’s religious and First Amendment freedoms? Perhaps it’s because many Christians, far from “hating gays,” as the trendy accusation goes, are intimidated by the liberal media and no longer agree with their Creator  that homosexual acts are an egregiously sexual sin.

 Eastman Kodak Company now gives preferential treatment to homosexual-owned “minority” subcontractors, and proudly gives funds to the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network. (GLSEN sponsored the notorious “Fistgate” workshop in 2000 and promotes homosexuality- and transsexuality-affirming lessons for grade schoolers.) Would Kodak be emboldened under an ENDA law to restrict “anti-gay” discussions or speech among its employees?

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Professor Rob Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice, examines the potential assaults on liberty if the ENDA bill (Employment Nondiscrimination Act, H.R. 3685) becomes law. Gagnon’s paper, “Don’t ENDAnger Your Liberties in the Workplace,” is a must read, as it delves into the potential reactions (and over-reactions) of corporation managers to a federal law that bans “discrimination” based on homosexuality (“sexual orientation”). Check out these scenarios offered by Gagnon:

• Suppose in the lunchroom or at the water cooler you engage in a conversation about sexual ethics. If a fellow employee extols homosexual bonds and you express your moral reservations about such bonds, you or the company could be liable for an anti-discrimination lawsuit for creating an intimidating atmosphere in the workplace that adversely affects the standing of a person who is vocal about his or her homosexual activity.
• Let’s say that, in response to “diversity” posters, you post on your cubicle the text of Rom 1:24-27. Or in response to a corporate directive that you participate supportively in a “Coming Out Day” you respectfully decline because you find homosexual practice to be morally offensive. Or in an attempt to get exempted from the email list of the company’s “GLBT” organization (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) you send an email requesting to be removed from the list because you think homosexual practice is immoral. In all these circumstances, you are far more likely to be disciplined or fired, and to have no legal redress, with an “ENDA” in place than without it.
• As a means of protecting the company against “discrimination” lawsuits, your employer may require you to attend indoctrination seminars that stress that homosexuality is as morally neutral as race or sex; and, moreover, to participate in “coming out” celebrations in the workplace that affirm “sexual diversity.” Your employer may further prohibit, under penalty of termination, any conversation, written communication, or act that calls homosexual practice into question.
• While homosexual and bisexual persons will have their jobs protected under this act, your job status and advancement will have no such protections if you manifest “discriminatory” words against homosexual behavior. Indeed, not only will your religious convictions not be protected in a secular workplace, but also they will be treated as “bigotry” akin to racism and sexism. Corporations don’t generally hire or promote bigots. It is not good for business.
• Monitoring of “discriminatory” beliefs toward homosexual and bisexual persons could even extend, at least in the case of white collar employees, outside the workplace. For example, if a school teacher has published in a newspaper a letter that advocates that society not provide legal incentives for homosexual practice, or offers counseling for those seeking to come out of the homosexual life, the courts could rule (as the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled a couple of years ago) that the employer is entitled to take such discriminatory views into consideration in suspending or firing the employee.

Gagnon’s entire paper can be viewed in HTML format HERE or as a PDF document HERE. Also see Americans For Truth’s special report on ENDA, “14 Good Reasons to Oppose H.R. 3685, the ‘ENDA Our Freedom” Bill.”

From Traditional Values Coalition’s website. TVC has led the charge against ENDA, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, on Capitol Hill: 

October 26, 2007 – Shortly after the White House issued a veto threat on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced she was delaying a vote on ENDA.

Pelosi is delaying the vote because Democrat leaders can’t find enough votes for passage of ENDA with “gender identity” added back into it. However, this supposed delay may only be a strategic move to undermine organized opposition to ENDA.

Click HERE to read the whole article

Breaking News: White House helped craft religious language for pro-homosexual ENDA bill; AFTAH urges Bush to pledge to veto bill in any form

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was written in 2007. Four years later, passage of the ENDA bill — now HR 1397 — is a high priority of the Obama administration. Go HERE for a GovTrack report on the 2011 version of this dangerous bill. — Peter LaBarbera, May 16, 2011. 

AFTAH has learned that White House staffers helped negotiate the new religious exemption language for the radical homosexual employment bill ENDA, H.R. 3685. Will that make it harder for President Bush to veto ENDA should it pass Congress? Call or contact the President (202-456-1111; www.whitehouse.gov/contact) and urge him to veto ENDA in any form should it pass Congress.

By Peter LaBarbera 

BREAKING NEWS/URGENT UPDATE: Americans For Truth has learned that a White House official has boasted to pro-family leaders attending a private Administration briefing that White House staffers were involved in the negotiations to craft expanded religious exemption language for the new ENDA bill, H.R. 3685 (discussed below). Call President Bush at 202-456-1111 or 202-456-1414 (www.whitehouse.gov/contact) to urge him to publicly pledge to veto the dangerous ENDA (Employment Nondiscrimination Act) bill, H.R. 3685 in ANY form should it pass.

At the briefing, the White House official did not commit to the assembled evangelical leaders that the President would veto H.R. 3685, saying that they will wait to see the bill’s final language, according to our source. This is troubling in that vetoing ENDA in any form is regarded as a “no-brainer” by pro-family activists, who are counting on Bush to stop it. Failure to veto ENDA would be a devastating defeat for pro-family forces and a huge gift to homosexual lobbyists. Call the President (202-456-111) and urge him to “please publicly pledge to veto ENDA, H.R. 3685, in any form if it passes Congress.”

Some religious leaders take comfort in ENDA’s exemptions; we do not (see Points 8 and 13 below).  White House involvement in negotiations over ENDA is problematic in that makes it more difficult for President Bush to veto the bill. As you can read below, H.R. 3685’s current religious exemption will hardly affect the many ways in which ENDA would erode and destroy the freedom of Americans to act on their deeply-held moral beliefs about homosexuality.

Also, CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN and SENATORS today and next week to oppose H.R. 3685, which is a watered-down version of a more radical version of ENDA, H.R. 2015 (see Point 10 below). Like H.R. 2015 — for which homosexual and transsexual activists are still crusading — H.R. 3685 has tremendous potential to criminalize Christianity in the United States by creating federal “rights” based on wrong and destructive lifestyles.
 
Yesterday, H.R. 3685 was voted out of the House Education and Labor Committee by a vote of 27-21 (some Democrats voted “no” because it wasn’t liberal enough; see Point 10 below). It is now headed for a House floor vote, possibly early next week. Call 202-224-3121 or go to http://www.congress.org/ to reach your Representative and U.S. Senators.

Here are 14 good reasons to oppose the revised ENDA, H.R. 3685:

1. ENDA and H.R. 3685 would create federally-protected “rights” based on immoral, unhealthy and changeable homosexual/bisexual behavior — masquerading as “orientation” — setting a dangerous legal, moral and spiritual precedent. Homosexuality is not a “civil right”; it is a human wrong — one that is redeemable as proven by thousands of contented former homosexuals and ex-lesbians. Our Founding Fathers, infused with a Biblical view of fallen man, created limited government that sought to restrain the sinful outworking of men’s hearts (including the lust for power, hence our system of checks and balances). The law once punished sin (e.g., sodomy and anti-abortion laws), so it is preposterous to say that homosexuality-affirming laws are necessary to uphold basic, “constitutional rights.” ENDA represents the complete rejection of the Judeo-Christian Western legal tradition by creating newfangled legal “rights” that actually reward errant lifestyles and sexual misbehavior.
2. ENDA/H.R. 3685  would be used to defend the placement of openly homosexual and bisexual teachers in our nation’s public schools in ALL localities (see # 7). For the more activist-minded homosexual teachers who are already in schools, H.R. 3685 could lead them to more boldly promote and discuss their lifestyle in the classroom, as schools could be sued for discrimination if they dared to discipline activist “gays.”
3. ENDA/H.R. 3685 would punish Christians and religious traditionalists by leading directly to the loss of freedom for tradition-minded business owners with 15 or more employees. Take the example of an Orthodox Jewish owner of a for-profit day-care business who would NEVER hire an avowed homosexual, lesbian or bisexual as a supervising adult care-giver, because he believes Scriptural teachings that homosexual practice is immoral and reflects poorly on one’s character. This religious man would qualify for the exemption to ENDA if he has 14 or less workers. But God forbid that his business grows to 15 or more employees, because then, under ENDA, he could no longer apply his religious and moral beliefs about same-sex sin in his hiring and firing decisions . It must be remembered that top homosexual strategists now assert that their “moral” claim (the right not to be treated differently based on their “sexual orientation”) trumps our religious/moral obligation to oppose homosexuality.
4. ENDA is unnecessary: there is no outbreak of homosexuals getting fired; in fact, it is Christians defending their faith in the public square who are getting fired  and mistreated  — like Matt Barber, who was terminated by Allstate Insurance in 2005 after writing an online article on his own time critical of homosexual “marriage.”  Moreover, private companies are racing to create pro-homosexual policies on their own: Kodak now gives special preference to homosexually-owned subcontractors as one of several “minorities” receiving favored consideration. We strongly disagree with these “gay”-affirmative-action-type policies, but corporations have the right to pursue them. However, with the proliferation of such corporate programs, there is no need for the heavy hand of government to act as a corporate Big Brother, forcing all companies to affirm homosexuality in their hiring and firing decisions. Let the free market decide this issue.
5. ENDA/H.R. 3685 would dramatically expand the power of the federal government and would put it behind ONE SIDE of the homosexuality debate: the politically correct and unbiblical claim that homosexuality is about “rights” and innocuous “orientations.” Therefore it would override traditional understandings of homosexuality as a changeable sin. Federal authority will be asserted to enforce homosexual “rights” over traditional Americans rights to operate their business according to their moral beliefs. At the very least, with half the nation still believing that homosexual behavior is wrong, the government should be neutral on this issue.
6. ENDA is a “gay” lawyer’s dream: it would be abused by litigious homosexual activists, who seem to have a special gift for lying about conservatives and exaggerating their own victim status. If history is a guide, ENDA will lead to “gay” harassment lawsuits against people like the theoretical day-care entrepreneur above. Homosexual activists have already used dirty tactics to harass and take down pro-family leaders like Larry Cirignano, Scott Lively, and Gary Glenn — all victims of trumped-up “gay” charges. Glenn was falsely accused by a homosexual activist group, the Triangle Foundation, of favoring the murder of homosexuals (this writer has also been falsely accused of this). Cirignano recently had “civil rights” charges against him dropped after a lesbian invaded his Catholic group’s rally and then claimed that he assaulted her. Lively, founder of Abiding Truth Ministries, was hit with a highly-publicized lawsuit in 1991 based on similar trumped-up charges. Oregon Republican writer Betty Freauf describes what happened: “At one of the O.C.A. meetings, a photo journalist and homosexual-rights activist by the name of Catherine Stauffer attended the [pro-family] meeting uninvited. When asked to leave, she refused. Scott Lively then O.C.A. [Oregon Citizen’s Alliance] executive director, escorted her out of the meeting. She then had her frivolous assault and battery lawsuit which had been the plan all along. Judgments were granted to the plaintiff Stauffer in the amount of $30,000 each against O.C.A. and Scott Lively.”    Certainly, some homosexual activists will not be able to resist using frivolous, ENDA-inspired lawsuits to intimidate conservative business owners into submission — especially those who speak out publicly against “gay marriage,” or oppose the homosexual lobby. Is it really hard to imagine homosexual activists sending “plants” into conservative-owned companies and then suing when the person is not hired, or is fired? Of course, the same might be attempted by apolitical yet greedy “gay” employees and lawyers seeking to manipulate the system through “discrimination” lawsuits.
7. ENDA would trample on the rights of the 30 states without homosexuality-based “sexual orientation” laws — including conservative “red” states like Oklahoma and Texas where there is little voter interest in passing such laws — by turning the whole nation, including all public schools (see #2), into a “special-protections-for-homosexual-workers” zone.
8. ENDA’s “religious exemption” is extremely limited and narrowly tailored: of course, it does NOTHING to protect the freedom of moral-minded small businessmen to hire and fire based on THEIR values system, not the government’s. But beyond that, ENDA’s “religious exemption” is also carefully circumscribed so as to box in non-church, religious-oriented groups, rather than liberate them (see points 12 and 13). Here is how H.R. 3685 defines “religious organization”:
    
   RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION – The term `religious organization’ means–
   (A) a religious corporation, association, or society; or 
   (B) a school, college, university, or other educational institution or institution of learning, if– 
   (i) the institution is in whole or substantial part controlled, managed, owned, or supported by a particular religion, religious corporation, association, or society; or
   (ii) the curriculum of the institution is directed toward the propagation of a particular religion
    
   Now think of all the businesses, associations and schools that would NOT be covered by that definition: private, non-church or non-religious schools, day-care centers not directly tied to a church; small secular businesses (15 or more employees, including part-timers) owned by Christians; etc.               Moreover, Matt Barber (see #4), Policy Director for Cultural Issues at Concerned Women for America and AFTAH Board Member, makes this excellent point on the constitutionality of ENDA’s religious exemption: “For any religious exemption to pass constitutional muster, [it] would have to follow the individual business owner.  The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion which applies to all individual citizens, not just to a church, religious organization or corporation.  It is unconstitutional to prevent, by force of law, an individual business owner from considering his sincerely held religious beliefs while determining how to best own and operate his private business.”
9. Even though ENDA proscribes quotas, H.R. 3685 would create de facto preferential status for “gay” employees – or those who claim that status (which is another issue: how does a company “prove” that an employee is or is not “gay”?). Especially for corporations and businessmen who fear lawsuits, ENDA would create a new category of “affirmative action” – for a group of people who, far from demonstrating a history of being disadvantaged economically, rank among the more affluent and privileged groups in society (for example, “gays” travel internationally at rates far higher than other groups) . (See #4 on existing private “gay affirmative action.”)
10. H.R. 3685 is merely the camel’s nose under the tent: even though homosexual Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) “threw tranny off the train” as it were – by backing a watered-down ENDA that does not explicitly cover transsexuals (“gender identity”) – the GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender) lobby is united in pushing for the even more radical version of ENDA, H.R. 2015, which fully covers “transgenders.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has agreed to bring that bill to the House floor for a vote if the bill’s sponsors can show they have enough votes to pass it.  Passage of H.R. 3685 would make passing H.R. 2015 — what we’re calling the “Transgender Bathrooms for Business” bill — easier.
11. H.R. 3685 would advance the “same-sex marriage” agenda. It would be cited by activist judges as evidence that America is moving towards pro-homosexual “equality” (read: state-sponsored “inequality” for people of faith). The homosexual agenda always advances incrementally, but federalizing “sexual orientation” law is a long-sought goal of “gay” activists and liberal social engineers seeking to break down our Judeo-Christian traditions by normalizing homosexuality through the law.
12. H.R. 3685’s exemption for “religious organizations” would divide society further by effectively creating a two-tiered system of rights.  Some Christians and religious people operating in exempted religious groups would get the “special right” to factor in their opposition to homosexuality in their hiring and firing decisions — but morality-conscious secular groups and business owners would lose their freedom to similarly defend heterosexual norms. This is not fair. Many nonreligious people oppose homosexual behavior and creating “rights” based on immoral, aberrant sex: why should they have any less freedom to act on their beliefs than religious citizens?
13. ENDA/H.R. 3685 will lead to further compromise in the Church: its religious exemption would mollify pastors and make them LESS likely to stand on principle and fight the aggressive homosexual agenda, since they would be “protected” (for now) from ENDA’s oppressive mandates. Of course, homosexual activists would later seek to tighten or eliminate religious- and church-based exemptions (there’s that incrementalism again). If homosexual activists truly respected people’s freedom to oppose homosexual behavior, would they constantly be complaining about “religious-based discrimination”? Would they be relentlessly attacking the Boy Scouts and have tried to make it illegal for the Scouts not to hire homosexual (and atheist) scoutmasters? Many “gay” advocates view Christian opposition to hiring homosexuals as simply another form of invidious discrimination to be overcome through law, academia and cultural mobilization.
14. ENDA confuses the issue of civil rights in America and trivializes African Americans’ struggle against discrimination. H.R. 3685 insults African-Americans and confuses the civil rights equation considerably by taking the 1964 Civil Rights Act — designed with the noble goal of redressing institutional racism in America — and refitting it to put the U.S. Government officially behind the false concept of homosexuality as a “civil right.” Blacks cannot change their skin color. Homosexuals can leave that lifestyle behind, as many have. (Conversely, people can become “gay” by embracing that ideology and lifestyle. Nobody can “become African American”; that’s how you are born.) Being black is not a moral issue. Embracing sinful and destructive homosexual behavior is. It has long been the goal of “gay” activists to exploit the noble Black civil rights movement — even appropriating its language of “equality” and drawing bogus analogies between ending legal bans on interracial marriage (a good and just reform) and the campaign to legalize homosexual “marriage” (a revolutionary attack on a sacred institution). ENDA would put government muscle behind this exploitation, and make it much easier to teach schoolchildren that homosexuality is a civil rights issue, not a moral one.

The following is excerpted from the homosexual newspaper Washington Blade. For the full story, click HERE:

GOP Reps save ENDA in close committee vote
Kucinich, others vote ‘no’ citing lack of trans protection
By LOU CHIBBARO JR., Washington Blade | Oct 18, 8:14 PM

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) cleared a pivotal hurdle in committee today after four gay-supportive Republicans joined the Democratic majority to save the bill from defeat.

Four pro-gay Democrats, including [a presidential candidate and Congressman], voted against the bill, saying they did so because a provision protecting transgender persons had been removed.

The bill passed in the House Committee on Education and Labor by a vote of 27 to 21, with 23 Democrats and four Republicans voting for the measure, which calls for banning job discrimination based on sexual orientation, a category that includes gay men, lesbians and bisexuals. Seventeen Republicans and the four Democrats voted against the bill.

If the Republicans voting for the measure had voted the other way, it would have lost by a vote of 23 to 25.

“We have never been able to pass a gay rights bill with only Democrats,” said gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), one of the lead sponsors of ENDA. “We’ve always known we need some Republicans.”

The bill is scheduled to go to the full House for a vote next week.

Click HERE for the full Blade article

“There are workplace situations — communal showers, for example — when the demands of the transgender community fly in the face of conventional norms and therefore would not pass in any Congress. I’ve talked with transgender activists and what they want — and what we will be forced to defend — is for people with penises who identify as women to be able to shower with other women.” –– Homosexual Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), back when he opposed including “transgenders” in the Employment NonDiscrimination Act (ENDA). Frank later relented but since has signed on to a watered-down version of ENDA (H.R. 3685) that dropped the “trans” language.

The “gay” activist movement’s partnership with the “transgender” cause is costing it votes for the expansive version of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), H.R. 2015, on Capitol Hill, so a new version of the bill (H.R. 3685) was floated that throws out the “gender equity” provisions. (H.S. 3685 also simplifies the bill’s religious exemption.) Now that version is being rejected by major homosexual and transsexual groups, led by the Human Rights Campaign (see letter below).

Over the years, homosexual activists including Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) (see quote above) have chafed at their alliance with a transsexual movement — knowing that it only makes their cause look even more radical to the general public. Yet the two movements have been intertwined and their partnership, as symbolized by the “GLBT” acronym (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender), has only strengthened in recent years. 

Transgender activists lobbied HRC to back a “trans”-positive ENDA and the leading homsoexual lobby organization eventually embraced it.

For the moment, the leading pro-homosexual groups are sticking with the  “transgenders,” but word on the Hill is that ENDA’s “trans” language — which AFTAH, CWA and other conservative groups have highlighted (we called ENDA the “Transgender Bathrooms for Business Bill”) — has cost H.R. 2015 key support, including among moderate Democrats.

The following letter (emphasis added) was sent yesterday by the liberal coalition Leadership Conference to Rep. George Miller (D-Cal.), Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. Miller’s committee was scheduled to consider the watered-down ENDA (H.R. 3685) this morning until the hearing was cancelled following the “gay”-led coalition effort against it. — Peter LaBarbera

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

1629 K Street, NW
10th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20006
Phone: 202-466-3311
Fax: 202-466-3435
http://www.civilrights.org/

October 1, 2007

The Honorable George Miller, Chairman
Committee on Education and Labor
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Miller:

On behalf of the undersigned organizations, we write to express our opposition to the strategy and process by which the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (HR 3685) is to be considered in the House of Representatives. We ask that the markup in the House Education and Labor Committee, scheduled for less than 24 hours from now, be canceled.

For many years, we have worked to develop an employment non-discrimination bill that protects the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Our organizations support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act as introduced (H.R. 2015).

Although we believe that the bill’s sponsor, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), and the House Democratic Leadership have a sincere desire to protect the LGBT community from
discrimination, we believe the process and strategy that has been adopted is a mistake. That mistake is compounded by moving forward with a markup tomorrow.

If you have any questions or need further information, please contact Nancy Zirkin, LCCR Vice President, at (202) 263-2880 or Rob Randhava, LCCR Counsel, at (202) 466-6058.

Sincerely,

American Civil Liberties Union
American Friends Service Committee
Gender Public Advocacy Coalition
Human Rights Campaign
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Legal Momentum
National Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Centers
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Center for Transgender Equality
National Council of Jewish Women
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG National)
People For the American Way
Pride At Work, AFL-CIO
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
GLSEN – the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network
United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society
The Woodhull Freedom Foundation
Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker
Representative Barney Frank
Representative Tammy Baldwin