Congress will soon debate something the rest of America
decided years ago: whether or not it’s okay to fire people for being gay.
By the end of June,
the Supreme Court will decide two related cases involving the right of gay
couples to get married. We don’t know what the decisions will be, although it
seems likely that gay-rights activists will have something to celebrate that
day, even if it’s less than what we’re hoping for.
And the celebration
has already begun. Delaware and Minnesota recently became the 11th and
12th states to enact marriage equality for same-sex couples,
and Illinois could follow suit. At the federal level, things are promising too,
as 54 Senators have spoken out in favor of marriage equality.
Poll numbers show a healthy majority of Americans agree. Even the NBA is getting in on the action, now that the first openly gay athlete in one of the nation’s Big Four sports has come out of the closet and been greeted with nearly unanimous support from teammates and coaches.
To an outsider, it
would appear that marriage equality is an idea whose time has come.
But despite the fact
that our national conversation about gay rights is largely focused on marriage
equality, this year Congress will be debating something the rest of America
decided years ago: whether or not it’s OK to fire people for being gay.
Few Americans still
think that’s a live question. Overwhelming majorities of Americans support the
passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would make it
illegal to fire someone for being gay or transgender. Even within the business
community itself, there’s broad support for the legislation. Tellingly,
pollsters have found that most Americans assume that it’s already the law.
It’s not. In 29
states, it’s still legal to fire someone because they’re gay. In 34, it’s legal
to fire someone because they are transgender.
Democrats, including
President Barack Obama, have supported the legislation for years, but even as
the nation gets more and more comfortable with equality for LGBT people, the
Republican Party’s leadership has been unable to move forward on the issue.
That’s very bad news, not just for the LGBT community, but also for the GOP
itself.
Republican strategists
are well aware that moderate voters aren’t keen on supporting a party that’s actively
working against basic equality for LGBT people, but there are powerful
constituencies within the GOP that are demanding fealty to a rigidly anti-gay
agenda. While voters in a general election are turned off by nasty anti-gay
rhetoric, Religious Right activists have whipped the GOP’s base voters, the
ones who show up for primary elections, into a lather.
Tony Perkins of the
right-wing Family Research Council says that ENDA is being pushed by the
“totalitarian homosexual lobby.” Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel says that the
law would lead to sexual molestation and even “the death of some individuals.”
Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition compared a similar
anti-discrimination measure to the brutal massacre of first graders at Sandy
Hook Elementary.
All that because of a
law that would stop gay people from getting fired for being gay.
It would be easy to
write off these extremists as fringe figures, but the truth is that Republican
leaders, so far, have chosen to cast their lot with the anti-gay industry, and
against the common sense anti-discrimination laws supported by most Americans.
Every day, it gets
clearer and clearer that LGBT people are part of our communities, and that
basic legislation, including laws to prevent discrimination on the job, are
common sense. But ENDA won’t even get a vote until House Speaker John Boehner
and at least a few Senate Republicans stop carrying water for the far-right and
instead open the door to some common sense pro-equality initiatives.
In the next few months,
GOP leaders will face a choice. They can stand up for common sense, progress,
and an increasingly lopsided majority of Americans, or they can side with the
rigidly anti-gay activists who are currently calling the shots in the
Republican Party.
They should probably
hurry up. America is getting way ahead of them.
Drew Courtney is the director of communications at People For
the American Way. PFAW.org
Distributed via OtherWords (OtherWords.org)
Distributed via OtherWords (OtherWords.org)