Weekly Political Roundup

The ongoing ENDA story dominates the LGBT headlines right now. To follow up on my earlier post: HRC has finally issued a statement. They say it is “devastating” that the bill no longer includes gender identity, but state “The decision has been made,” and claim that:

House leadership and the bill’s sponsors very firmly believe that if the House votes on an employment non-discrimination bill without gender identity, that legislation will pass—again, it will pass even without the support of the GLBT organizations.

The Advocate reports that a separate employment non-discrimination bill just for gender identity will move forward on a separate track.

Openly gay Representative Barney Frank has issued a statement saying:

…under the current political situation, we do not have sufficient support in the House to include in that bill explicit protection for people who are transgender. The question facing us — the LGBT community and the tens of millions of others who are active supporters of our fight against prejudice — is whether we should pass up the chance to adopt a very good bill because it has one major gap. . . . moving forward on this bill now will also better serve the ultimate goal of including people who are transgender than simply accepting total defeat today.

Openly lesbian Respresentative Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) has, however, withheld her name from the gender-identity-free ENDA.

Pam at the Blend observes that many corporations have already been through the process of trans acceptance, and makes the wise comment that:

In the end, it’s about the education needed to bring legislators to a place of comfort where American companies are now. They, and the public at large need to see the faces and hear the stories of transgendered Americans and why ENDA as written is not a threat, but a fulfillment of a promise of equal treatment under the law that many take for granted.

In other news:

• The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act passed the Senate. It now heads to conference committee for a reconciliation with the House version, and, assuming it makes it past that to President Bush, as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act.
• General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, repeated his view that same-sex relationships are immoral. The general, set to retire soon, did, however, acknowledge the contributions of gay men and lesbians serving in the military.
• Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is upset that “Not one [Democratic] candidate was uncomfortable with young children learning about same-sex marriage in the second grade” when the matter was discussed during a Democratic debate. As I’ve said before, if people really want to remove discussion of same-sex families from the classroom, they’ll have to expel our children.
• Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson, despite a major slip-up during August’s HRC/LOGO Presidential Forum, asserted he would turn down the usual honorary presidency of the Boy Scouts of America if he was elected U.S. President, citing the BSA’s anti-gay stance.
• More than 90 organizations joined to file 30 amicus with the California Supreme Court in support of marriage equality. The groups included the California Council of Churches, the California District of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the NAACP, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
• The city commissioners of Oakland Park, Florida voted to add gender identity and gender expression to the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.
• Idaho Senator Larry Craig is not resigning. He awaits a verdict on whether he will be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea for disorderly conduct.
• At a hearing to gauge the success of civil unions in New Jersey, many same-sex couples in civil unions asserted that they have been denied benefits provided to married couples. In total, more than 300 of the 1,514 such couples have reported such denials to Garden State Equality.
• Opponents of LGBT-rights in Oregon Legislature turned in about 63,000 signatures, which, after invalid ones are excluded, might be enough to put the state’s new domestic partnership and LGBT-inclusive anti-discrimination laws up for a vote in the November 2008 election. Isn’t banning marriage enough, folks?
• The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear arguments next week to determine if the Dane County Circuit Court and the Fourth District Court of Appeals had properly denied several municipalities the right to intervene in a case asking whether state employees are entitled to benefits for same-sex partners. They claim a decision could impact a variety of employee benefits.

Around the World:

• A court in Argentina has approved a sex-change operation for a 17-year-old, the first time such a procedure has been approved for a minor.
• In a speech at Columbia University, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied there were “homosexuals” in his country, despite the fact that human-rights groups have documented the imprisonment and torture of many gay citizens. Another report says the government nevertheless provides sex reassignment surgeries, more than any country besides Thailand.
• Britain’s Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR), the country’s new “full spectrum equalities and human rights organisation,” will launch next week. The chief executive of LGBT-rights group Stonewall is a Commissioner of the new group, which will enforce equality legislation and provide information and guidance to the public and private sectors as well as to individuals.