After five days of feverish organizing, leading LGBT organizations have delayed, at least for the moment, a proposal by gay Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank to rush a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) through the House of Representatives, stripped of protections for transgendered Americans.
With less than 24 hours to go before a House committee was due to take up the amended version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, stripped of transgender protections, Democratic leaders in the House have put off the hearing in the face of a storm of criticism from LGBT leaders nationwide.... Read more
This followed developments last week that seemed to divide the Human Rights Campaign from many other leading LGBT rights groups and also split Frank from Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin lesbian Democrat who is the House's only other out LGBT representative.
The offices of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and out gay Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank have confirmed that the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, will be taken up by the Labor and Education Committee without protections for transgendered Americans that were part of the bill as originally introduced this year. ...
HRC, referring to the likelihood that the employment bill would be altered, on Thursday told the Advocate.com that the organization "is deeply disappointed and did not assent to this position." However, the group did not sign on to a letter circulated the same day by other leading LGBT organizations that came in response to a story about the bill's prospective changes published in the Washington Blade.
Significantly, Democrat Tammy Baldwin, a lesbian who represents Madison, Wisconsin, and is the only other out LGBT member of Congress, did not put her name on the new bill. Her spokeswoman Jerilyn Goodman said Baldwin has not yet done any interviews on the topic... Read more
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