How far will the Democrats go on gay rights?

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - The gay rights movement has come a long way since 1970 when Vice President Spiro Agnew attacked a liberal Republican critic of the Nixon Administration.

Agnew called Sen. Charles Goodell of New York “the Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party."

Pundits found Agnew's sneering reference to the well-known 1950s transsexual clever, even if a bit harsh.

Today members of Congress aren’t making such people the butt of jokes; they’re debating whether they should have protection under federal law.

Many Americans know and work with a gay or lesbian person, but how many have a nodding acquaintance with a transgender person?

That distinction may explain why the House of Representatives is likely to vote within the next few weeks for job protections for gays and lesbians, but not for people who are transsexuals or adopt the appearance and mannerisms of the other sex.

The House Democratic leadership is giving activists from gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) groups a few weeks to try to round up the votes to include transgender people in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

The bill would make it illegal for an employer to fire, refuse to hire, or offer less pay to a person “because of such individual's actual or perceived sexual orientation.”

Activists “have two weeks to try to get the votes” to include transgender people in ENDA, said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chief sponsor of the bill.

Defining 'gender identity'
Frank’s original ENDA, introduced last April, also said employers could not discriminate against workers on the basis of "gender identity” which his bill defined as “the gender-related identity, appearance, or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, with or without regard to the individual's designated sex at birth.”

NBC VIDEO Gen. Pace calls gays 'immoral' March 13: NBC's Jim Miklaszewski talks with Campbell Brown about Gen. Peter Pace's comments on gays in the military. Nightly News

The new version of Frank’s bill drops gender identity as a protected status.

A House veteran of 26 years, Frank comes to this conclusion: “The problem is we don’t have the votes” to give ENDA job coverage to transgenders.

But the fact that the House is even considering this idea shows how much has changed in the last few decades.

With the 2008 elections in sight, the transgender issue could give House Democrats in conservative-leaning districts something to vote against even as they vote for ENDA for gays and lesbians.

The view from Dover, Ohio
One Democratic freshman in a Republican-leaning district, Rep. Zack Space of Ohio, said he supports the idea of banning workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians.

But legal protections for transgender people, he said, is a “more foreign” idea, and he is “not comfortable making a commitment on that.”

But even without transgender people included in it, would ENDA be politically unpalatable in Space’s Ohio district? “It may be, or it may not be,” Space said. “My vote on that issue is not based on the fallout politically.”

President Bush carried Space’s district in 2004 with 57 percent of the vote.

Also in 2004, Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed a ballot initiative amending the state constitution to make “only a union between one man and one woman” legally valid.

But marriage, Space said “is an entirely different matter” than employment policies.

ENDA “is not an insuperable problem for most of the Democratic freshman,” said Frank. “Several (Democratic) freshmen told me they’d vote for it.”

MORE FROM POLITICS

Politics Section Front

McCain's health plan looks beyond employers Obama 'puzzled' by Iraq remarks furor Analysis: McCain struggles to regain footing NYT: McCain battles the teleprompter Bush celebrates 62nd birthday on the fly Dems hit GOP on Medicare cuts Former Sen. Jesse Helms dies at 86 Jesse Helms: Polarizer, not a compromiser Both left and right pile on Obama Bush heckled at new citizen ceremony Politics Section Front   Add Politics headlines to your news reader: