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Loading ...4 major LGBT bills await new Congress
11.05.2008 5:02pm EST
(Washington) Three key LGBT bills currently before Congress – the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – are likely to die when the current session ends, leaving it up to the new Congress to take them up.
The Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act was named for the 21-year-old college student who was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in Wyoming in October 1998. It would have added sexual orientation to the list of categories covered under federal hate crime law.The bill passed the House in 2007 and the White House threatened to veto it. In an effort to get around a veto, the Senate version was tied to the 2008 defense authorization bill. It passed, but then went to conference, where it was stripped out.
Last month, the FBI released statistics showing that hate crimes in general had dropped across the country except for those against LGBT people. The bureau report showed a 6 percent increase in anti-gay hate crimes.
If the Shepard Act is passed, it would allow federal charges to be pressed in hate crimes against gays and give judges the power to impose tougher sentences.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, also passed the House in 2007, but without protections for the transgendered.
The legislation would make it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in hiring, firing, promoting or paying an employee.
When ENDA returns, it is likely to include gender identity protections.
ENDA, originally introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass), included transpeople, but Frank removed those protections in committee saying it would be impossible to pass.
More than a dozen LGBT groups immediately distanced themselves from the legislation. Frank and the Human Rights Campaign now say they will fight to ensure an inclusive ENDA is passed.
Legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” the ban on gays serving openly in the military was taken up in committee this year for the first time, but did not make it to a vote.
DADT was enacted in 1993. Since then more than 12,000 servicemembers have been dismissed when it was learned they are gay. According to statistics from the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network which advocates for gays in the military an average of two service members are dismissed under the law every day.
It also is widely expected that legislation will be introduced to repeal the so-called federal Defense of Marriage law that forbids the federal government from recognizing any form of gay union – marriage, civil union or domestic partnership. President-elect Barack Obama has said he would sign such a repeal, although no Democrat has so far said such a bill would be brought in.
Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Trevor Thomas tells 365Gay that when the new Congress is seated it will lobby members on all four bills.
Simply put:
MARRIAGE IS A SECULAR CONTRACT. ALL PEOPLE HAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO MAKE CONTRACTS IN THE UNITED STATES.
If we also use the secular argument “Marriage is a contract, and the people cannot take away the right to contract from anyone” because it is protected by the US Constitution, and further it has been upheld by the US Supreme Court for 200 years, and ruled a basic right of all people in the US to make contracts.
The “marriage contract” is enshrined in the laws to simply make it a simple matter to wed, and to have some semblance order. If it is not a contract, then why are “prenuptial agreements” even legal and why do divorce agreements have to be made by the courts? They are modifications to the basic secular contract enacted into law.
If we do this, then the religious idiots and the evil bigots cannot possibly have a leg to stand on. And any such challenge to marriage contract will fail miserably.
Let’s all focus on building the support for these laws…if we have patience and build support on both sides of the party divide, we may finally get all our rights in the next 8 years.
Nice thought Quasi but what the YES on H8 people were saying here was that their children would be forced to learn that gayness is right in schools…thats how we lost “THE SKY WAS FALLING’ cluck,cluck and it worked. They didn’t say a thing about marriage.
We need to wait for a supportive SCOTUS and pass a law…Amendments to the US Constitutio are rough.
Getting a Hate Crimes Bill, and fully-inclusive ENDA and repoeal of DOMA and DADT will go a long way to at least protecting gays and allowing them to financially mainstream more easily and be accepted in society.
And we nead to keep fighting the bigotry of the so called ‘Christian’ churches…espcially the BLACK ONES! Too bad we can’t call on JC himself, he was NOT against homosexuality.
MAybe instead of working to have marriage recogtnized in the SCC Community and gaining our rights, we should be working to remove the 1100 + rights that go along with stright marriage. Then they can have marriage in all its religious glory and it wont really mean a thing.
All your rights will be bestowed upon you when neurotic legal and medical professionals are prepared to take MRI polygraphs to address the fraud perpetuated since the inital revision of the ALIMPC in 1955 based on the fraudulent and fallacious works of Alfred Kinsey and subsequently, Evelyn Hooker. Do not expect conservatives to remain silent if the goal remains to normalize neurotic behavior and its associated paraphilias without the benefit of replicable, empirical science using gay marriage and civil unions as a means to knowingly place children in “borderline”(psychiatric term) caretaker environments, regardless of the gender or socioeconomic status of the caretaker environment. Secondly, although religious institutions do not welcome ENDA, it would be the first time, since affirmative action, where promotion and hiring was based on merit. I look forward to helping you remove the liberal slackers and incompetents from the public and private sectors.
In regard to what Quasi said, indeed “Civil Marriage” is a contract confering all the rights of closest of kin, upon one who is not one’s kin. A huge factor in this conflict is caused by the fact that religions have a sacrament, “Holy Matrimony” which unites two persons spiritually into one, in the eyes of God. They’re afraid that if government defines the contract to include same-sex couples, it also redefines the sacrament but it doesn’t. The two are as separate from one another as church is separate from state. Keep church and state separate and neither will have a problem.
Hate to say it and be negative, but you might want to start working on the Black Community, especially the reverends, ministers, etc… If 70% of the black community voted for discrimination like they did in Cali. on Prop 8 then, you are gonna fight an even steeper uphill battle….
Some people think its ok to use others and pay them back with hatefulness, cruelty and ignorance as opposed to opening their minds and hearts.
I know had I been born when Dr. King was marching I and ppl. who look like me, love like me and act like me would have been marching along side of him. So we would ALL have oppurtunity to achieve the “American Dream” of Equality and Justice for All.
Be real. Dobson, Bauer and others are already proclaiming the “end of the gay agenda.” Even with enhanced Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, our defeat in 4 of 5 ‘gay rights’ ballot issues (if we can count CT as a win) is going to make it very difficult for Obama and our congressional friends to successfully push anything more than watered-down ENDA and hate-crimes legislation. We gave them no cover to go after DOMA or DADT.
“Hate to say it and be negative, but you might want to start working on the Black Community, especially the reverends, ministers, etc… If 70% of the black community voted for discrimination like they did in Cali. on Prop 8 then, you are gonna fight an even steeper uphill battle…. ”
We really have come full circle now that other minorities have to beg African Americans for rights.
Why is the Uniting American Families Act not part of the agenda? Since same-sex marriages are not recognized under federal law, American citizens cannot sponsor their foreign same-sex spouses for permanent residency. There are around 50,000 bi-national same-sex couples living in the U.S. Because of the discrimination in immigration law, many couples are forced apart, abroad, or underground. The UAFA would create a mechanism for bi-national couples to stay together, with the American citizen sponsoring their same-sex permanent partner the same way gender-discordant couples can. In 2006, the UAFA had 116 co-sponsors in the House and 14 in the Senate (although Biden, Obama, and Clinton were all AWOL on this one). Should that not qualify this bill for inclusion on the list of LGBT priorities?
“In an effort to get around a veto, the Senate version was tied to the 2008 defense authorization bill.”
Your country sure has a wierd sense of democracy *lol*
What is really so upsetting to me is that straight people say the LGBT community deserves no rights. Myself being gay that really hurts me deeply. I did have a wedding ceremony in the MCC Church in Louisville, Kentucky on October 7, 2005 but the sad reality is my marriage isn’t recongized by Kentucky or even by the majority of America. I believe it’s not right that we have to have straight people to vote rather if we get any kind of rights like marriage for example. My only hope is eventually somewhere down the road the LGBT community will have full rights just like the straight people do.
What about the the Uniting American Families Act, which would enable an “unmarried” citizen to sponsor for residency their partner?
My own church did not want to “serve as an agent of state of Maryland RE: any one’s marriage” since especially since gays cannot legally marry in Maryland.
My church does not want to sign any marriage documents that are official to our state government and thus be thrust into a legal relationship with the state for something that should be a strictly state function. Thus freeing a church to celebrate any one’s wedding gay or straight as it sees fit and as the couple wants.
People of course should have the choice as to where to have their big ceremony of the day be it church or elsewhere but
all clergy conducting a wedding (which should be a private and non-legal event)should be stopped from signing anything that is not strictly a record of the church where wedding ceremony was held)
and only state officials should be allowed to sign marriage documents. That way it is kept in the realm of the legal function of the local state. All ceremonies beyond a kiss and a quick one minute pledge to stick together and take care of each other until death between any two adults (two men, two women, or one man and one woman) of legal age, not already in a relationship and not related by blood having paid a fee and having their marriage witnessed and signed by the state. Ceremonies if they are wanted should be in some private venue be it park, under a tree, by the lake, in a rented hall, in a home, in a church, but not in some official place where ceremony consumes time or tax dollars.
When President elect Obama is in office and when the new Congress is seated, hopefully all 4 of these long-standing bills will be voted into law and Congress can thus free its self of old unresolved busineess and reinstate what should be reinstated and move on to yet other things that need to have been resolved years ago. Hopefully, although I am not holding my breath, more of the American people’s business can get done.