By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

Democratic leaders on a U.S. House of Representatives committee rejected an intense lobbying campaign by more than 300 GLBT groups Oct. 18 and passed a weakened version of non-discrimination legislation that offers limited employment protections to gays and lesbians but none to transgenders.

The House Education and Labor Committee approved the bill on a 27-21 vote, sending it to the House floor for a likely floor vote Oct. 24.

The controversial bill, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (HR 3685), was rewritten several weeks ago by its chief sponsor, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), without protections based on gender identity that had been included in a previous version, HR 2015. Frank, with backing from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said he dropped gender identity protections because he thought the bill couldn’t be passed if those protections were included.

That resulted in a furious backlash from more than 300 GLBT organizations, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, PFLAG, Lambda Legal, the National Center for Transgender Equality and statewide groups such as Equality Illinois and Illinois Gender Advocates. Those groups urged representatives to vote against the weaker, non-inclusive bill.

Four Democrats voted against the bill last week—Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Rush Holt, Linda Sanchez and Yvette Clarke—because it lacked gender identity protections.

“We could have done better,” Sanchez said.

Virtually alone among GLBT groups, the Human Rights Campaign hasn’t worked to defeat the less-inclusive bill, saying its more cautious stance left it in position to get Pelosi and Frank to agree to support a proposed floor amendment by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) that would reinsert gender identity. But most experts expect that Baldwin’s amendment will fail.

“Its chances are slim,” NGLTF Executive Director Matt Foreman said during a visit to Chicago Oct. 18.

Even though he expects the weak version of ENDA to pass in the House, Foreman said he, like most other observers, believes the bill won’t make it through the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to ensure a vote.

“There’s going to be no juice in the community to press forward on this fatally flawed bill,” Foreman said.

The version of ENDA Frank and Pelosi are pushing exempts employers with less than 15 employees, exempts religious-affiliated employers and specifically prohibits use of the measure to require employers to provide gay and lesbian employees with benefits equivalent to those given to married heterosexual employees.

Foreman said despite the controversy in the GLBT community that erupted when Frank changed the bill, the long-term effects of the community’s reaction figures to be positive.

“The energy, the enthusiasm and the anger is unprecedented,” Foreman said. “I do think this provoked a very healthy debate about who we are as a community and what are our values. This has advanced the debate about gender identity in ways none of us thought possible.”

Advocates across the country said they would continue to urge their supporters to contact members of Congress right up to the expected Oct. 24 floor vote to ask them to support Baldwin’s gender identity amendment.

Pelosi ignored questions about the bill during a fundraising visit to Chicago Oct. 19. Some two-dozen transgender, gay and lesbian protesters demonstrated outside the Mag Mile Westin Hotel where the fundraiser was held, urging Pelosi to reverse her position and push for a vote on the previous, more inclusive version of ENDA.

“We’re here to tell Nancy Pelosi that we want an inclusive ENDA that protects everyone,” said protest organizer June Latrobe.