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Pass ENDA, Not Splenda!
On Thursday, LGBT people got a huge victory when the Senate passed the Matthew Shephard Act, which added sexual orientaiton and gender identity and expression to existing hate crimes statutes.
Also on Thursday, the LGBT community received word that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is to be stripped of language that protects people based on gender identity/expression, and will instead only include protections based on sexual orientation.
Sign up to show your support for the trans-inclusive ENDA: www.NoSubstitutes.org.
Proponents of the stripped bill (hereafter referred to ask Fake ENDA) argue that we're 50 votes short to pass trans-inclusive ENDA (even though the original, H.R. 2015, had 171 co-sponsors), and passing protection for some (LGB) people is better than not passing any protections at all.
That might be true, if this was more than a symbolic vote. No matter what its form, whether it includes gender identity or not, this bill is almost guaranteed a veto, and we don't really have the votes to override that. So, if we're working for a symbolic vote anyway, doesn't it make sense to allow that symbol to include all working Americans?
Working to pass a discrimination act that still allows discrimination against some in the LGBT community isn't really getting anywhere.
That's why you should tell Congress to pass ENDA, not "Splenda," to help build support for the original ENDA. Passing the trans-inclusive version of this bill isn't just possible, it's our responsibility.
- Angie Buhl's blog
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