By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act—legislation to end job-related discrimination based on sexual orientation—passed the U.S. House of Representatives Nov. 7 but faces likely defeat in the Senate and a threatened presidential veto even if it should pass.

“I don’t think anybody thinks it’ll pass the Senate,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “I don’t think the votes are there.”

The bill was the subject of rancorous debate within the GLBT community after House Democratic leaders decided to weaken it to make it more palatable to some members of the Democratic caucus. Provisions making it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity were dropped from the bill, exemptions for organizations with religious ties were expanded and employers with less than 15 employees were exempted.

“Many lesbian and gay people will celebrate the passage of this legislation, and it certainly reflects progress in the long march toward equality,” said Toni Broadus, executive director of the Equality Federation. “However, Equality Federation remains steadfast in opposition to this bill—not because of what it purports to do, but because of what it fails to do.”

Equality, which represents more than 40 statewide GLBT advocacy groups, including Equality Illinois, was part of a coalition of more than 300 GLBT groups that opposed the bill after it was re-written last month by its chief sponsor, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) Frank said he dropped gender identity protections and broadened the bill’s exemptions after determining that the bill could not pass the House without those changes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) backed Frank.

“While I had hoped that we could have included gender identity, I support final passage of ENDA because its passage will build momentum for further advances on gender identity rights and the rights of all Americans,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) worked feverishly behind the scenes in the past few weeks to have gender identity put back in the bill. Before the final vote, Baldwin was allowed a few moments on the floor to speak in favor of an amendment to add gender identity protections to the re-written ENDA, but the amendment was then pulled without a vote.

Only one major gay and lesbian advocacy group—the Human Rights Campaign—supported the bill. That represented a reversal for HRC, whose president had said in September that HRC officials “absolutely do not support and, in fact, oppose any legislation that is not absolutely inclusive.”

After Frank announced his changes to the bill, HRC modified its position, saying it would not support the bill but would also not join other GLBT groups in actively opposing it. Shortly before the bill passed, however, HRC changed its position again, releasing a letter it co-signed with 13 other organizations—none of them based in the GLBT community—that urged passage of the bill.

On Nov. 9 Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), chief sponsor of ENDA in the Senate, announced he would move to pass a version of the measure in the Senate. Kennedy praised the passage of the House bill but didn’t specify whether he’d push it or the broader, more-inclusive version of ENDA.

While there are 100 senators, ending debate on a measure requires 60 votes in the Senate, and most observers believe it would be difficult to get 60 votes to do that on ENDA. Kennedy could try to attach the measure to another bill, a tactic he used earlier this session when he successfully amended a military spending bill to include the Matthew Shepard Act, a hate crimes measure.

ENDA passed the House on a 235-184 vote, with 35 Republicans supporting the measure and 25 Democrats opposed. Seven Democratic representatives voted against because it didn’t include gender identity protections. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a longtime champion of GLBT rights, cast one of those votes.

“‘Liberty and justice for all’ must not just be words we say; they must be values reflected in our laws,” Nadler said. “In the past weeks I, like many of my colleagues in the House, have heard from my constituents and from various advocacy groups urging the adoption of an inclusive ENDA. Like these passionate individuals and groups, I believe that full equality is our goal. I have never seen such unanimity from the civil rights and LGBT groups on this issue.”

The White House last week reiterated that President Bush would veto ENDA if it reaches his desk, issuing a statement saying ENDA threatens “the free exercise of religion.”

Gay journalist and radio host Michaelangelo Signorile, whose show is broadcast weekdays, 1-5 p.m., on Sirius OutQ 109, questioned HRC President Joe Solmonese at length Nov. 7 about HRC’s role in the current ENDA controversy. Read the complete transcript below.

This is the transcript of an interview of HRC President Joe Solmonese conducted by Michaelangelo Signorile on his radio show (weekdays, 1-5 p.m.) on Sirius OutQ 109 satellite radio Nov. 6. Listen to the interview online at www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3548.

Michaelangelo Signorile: We have been telling people, for a while and certainly today, to call their members of Congress—certainly pro-gay Democrats—and make their voice heard that this bill is insufficient, and it’s inadequate and they should vote against it because that’s what you do when bills are insufficient and inadequate. Are you saying those people are wrong to be doing that?

Joe Solmonese: No, I think, just, well, I don’t, when you say “we” I think that’s kind of a loaded question, and that depends on who you are talking about, because different groups within the movement have been calling on their members to do different things. So what I believe is…

MS: Do you think its wrong to tell members of Congress to vote against this bill?

JS: I think it is wrong to tell members of Congress to vote against the civil rights bill that they are going to be faced with on the floor of the house tomorrow, yes. That’s not what people have been doing though. What the effort has been up until now, at least as I understand it, among most of the groups, is to try and keep this bill from coming to the floor for a vote. And so, what’s changed, at least from my point of view, is that this bill came out of the Rules Committee, as you know, last night on its way to the floor for a vote tomorrow in the House. And I think that if that’s the case, regardless of whether or not you think the bill should come to the floor or not come to the floor, that if it’s on the floor, and a member of Congress is faced with a vote, that’s for the community and I think that for the future prospects of even moving towards an inclusive bill, it would be disastrous if the bill lost on the floor in a vote.

MS: Why? It’s an insufficient bill. It excludes a whole bunch of people, a whole group of people, from protections. There are many very pro-gay members of Congress who’ve said they are loathe to vote for a bill that doesn’t include transgender people. Jerry Nadler has said that, Anthony Wiener has said that, both New York congressmen, Linda Sanchez, a California Democrat, voted against letting it out of committee without transgender protection. Are those people wrong and are you going to be holding this against them in their (HRC) scorecard?

JS: Well, I don’t think it’s a question of right or wrong. I think it’s just, I mean, I think as this has been from the very beginning its a debate about tactics and its a matter of point of view. I mean, John Lewis, Congressman John Lewis, whom I think most of us would consider a real hero in the civil rights movement, is gonna vote for this bill. And as he said to me last week, and I agree with him, this is the first step in a long process of getting to the bill that we want.

MS: So will those Democrats have it held against them by the HRC?

JS: Well, we’re scoring the vote, and so, you know, they will be noted and…

MS: How can they, you score against them when, No. 1, when they’ve been enormous allies of the movement, No. 2, when they were listening to Joe Solmonese himself from Sept. 11—let’s play that, from Sept. 11:

JS (on tape): “We try to walk a thin line in terms of keeping everything in play and making sure that we move forward but always being clear that we absolutely do not support and, in fact, oppose any legislation that is not absolutely inclusive. And we have sent that message loud and clear to the Hill.”

MS: You are now supporting legislation that is not inclusive.

JS: Here’s our policy. Our policy is that we evaluate circumstances that change day by day here in Washington, and we try to make the decision that is the best decision or we think is in the best interest of the community and of moving full towards an inclusive piece of legislation. And so, you know, do, did we change, did we react to a change in the legislative environment over the past couple of days because that bill came out of committee and onto the floor? Yes, and did we think that the best thing for the community is for that bill to get passed on the floor? Yes, we do. Now are we gonna characterize the votes accordingly and make sure people know that some people voted against it because they didn’t think it was inclusive enough and other people voted against it because they just don’t like gay people and they’re never gonna vote for anything? Sure we are. But the fact of the matter is that, you know, this sort of, this sort of process changes every day here in Washington, and what we’re trying to do is make sure that we keep moving in the direction of an inclusive bill. You asked me a question about, you know, why, why vote on this bill?

It’s a process. This is a very complex, unwieldy piece of legislation.

MS: I understand what you’re saying, and you are speaking to me as a Beltway lobbyist. As somebody like at the NRA or something like that, and that’s your prerogative, OK. I understand what lobbyists have to do, but how do we trust you when you put on this other hat where you claim you are a civil rights leader? Civil rights leaders, you know, believe in principle, and you don’t spout Beltway hack stuff when you are a civil rights leader—at least the way I see it.

JS: Well, I think its…

MS: Now, you know, honestly, because you said on Sept. 14 you’d only support an inclusive bill. Why should we believe all of your future grandiose statements about equality?

JS: Look, I think that what people…

MS: And I‘d really like an answer to that question—why should we believe you?

JS: Well, I think what you have to do is you have to watch our actions and see what, you know, what we do. What people expect HRC to do is to move this legislation towards passage and to move towards the most inclusive legislation possible. And, you know, that is a circumstance that changes everyday. You know you say I’m talking like a Beltway lobbyist. I think I’m telling, I think I’m talking like someone who has had more conversation with members of Congress than anybody else who’s been in this debate and who understands the complexity of moving in the direction of…

MS: But you made a promise to a movement and to a people that you would stick by your principles and how is this different from Mitt Romney and Giuliani and all of these other flip-floppers that come out of that town you live in?

JS: Because we are an organization that has to react to the realities of what’s going on Capitol Hill everyday.

MS: That’s what Giuliani will say and that’s what Mitt Romney will say. So the reality is to try and get a win and isn’t that what you are trying to get here—a win of some kind, any kind?

JS: No. No. I mean, what we’re trying to do is get a big piece of this legislation, some part of this legislation, dealt with in Congress. And when you talk to members of Congress about legislation like this there are big parts of it. There is corporate regulation, there’s a religious exemption, there’s a sexual orientation issue, there’s gender identity, and the more you talk to these members the more you see that there are big parts of this that some of them are comfortable with and big parts of this that they’re not. So we could throw our hands up and say, you know what, let’s just all oppose this thing and walk away and come back when we feel like we’ve got every one of these members that we need, fully there, on every piece of this—that would be the easy thing to do.

MS: Why not do that?

JS: Because you—that’s not the way moving legislation forward works. And I know you say it sounds like I’m an inside the Beltway person but that’s where I am and that’s where unfortunately, that’s where the work has to be done.

MS: Look, we need that that and we need lobbyists like that. I would just rather that you not go out round the country making grandiose statements and speeches and promises to people and billing HRC as the civil rights leaders of this country. Look, there’s Beltway action, and that needs to take place and people understand that, but you can’t talk out of both sides of your mouth here.

JS: Well, I mean, look, I think…

MS: I think it’s a problem for HRC. I think it’s always been, and I think this is underscoring it. Are you a Beltway lobby group? Are you civil rights leaders? Which are you?

JS: I think that we’re an organization that is committed to moving in what we think is the best direction towards an inclusive piece of legislation. And I think that there are a lot of different tactics that people can talk about taking to get that done, and some people say, and I respect this, you ought to just walk away from it all and you ought to come back to Capitol Hill for a vote when you think you’ve got everybody there where they need to be. Other people, and I agree with this, because I saw this—I was here, I was here through the family medical leave fight. I saw this through the Americans with Disabilities fight. It doesn’t sometimes feel good to say, you know what—a member of Congress is going to vote on this legislation three times. He’s gonna take on the first three pieces of this, then he’s gonna come back after he gets re-elected and take on the second three pieces, and then he’s gonna come back after he gets re-elected again and take on all of it. And it’s going to pass into law and that’s the way it’s going to go before this president ever signs it. I don’t like the way that that’s how Congress works, but that’s how Congress works. And so the question is do you want to stand outside and feel all good together and say we’ll come back someday when everybody’s there or do you want to go down the road of getting it done?

(Program ID by Signorile)

MS: But you understand the credibility issue here and how this has really devolved over the past several weeks—terrible organizing, and I think, across the board and from members of Congress on down—it’s really devolved now into a debate that got really ugly and we saw a lot of nasty remarks and comments about transgender people online. It devolved into an ugly debate, and it’s also now hinging on the credibility of your organization as well. How did it get to that, and how do you stand up for the credibility of HRC and what you have said in the past? You made a pledge and you’ve broken it.

JS: Well, a lot of people—it’s interesting that you say that, that over the past couple of weeks that this has devolved into a debate, sometimes an ugly debate about gender identity, about what the best way forward is. You know, as you mentioned, some people have gone back and, you know, sort of revisited transgender people as part of the movement. They read the same things that you read…

MS: Now, and people now associate HRC with that kind of thinking.

JS: But, you know, it would have been nice if at the beginning of this process we could have perhaps slid through the gender identity aspects of this bill with the rest of the bill the way we were able to do on hate crimes, but, you know, it didn’t unfold this way. It just didn’t unfold that way. And, you know, the notion that we were able to get that done on the hate crimes bill in both the House and the Senate seems to have been forgotten by everybody, but it didn’t unfold that way, and so…

MS: Well, I understand that…

JS: So a debate happened within the community that perhaps was inevitable. I mean, you know, there are different points of view about how to move forward on a piece of legislation. Do we move forward in the way that I just described it or do we walk away? Now if that, in the course of a month’s debating that in the movement, has sparked a debate about how to do it and about gender identity, you know, I mean, they don’t call it civil rights fight for nothing.

MS: You had said, and we talked about this and we played the clip, you would not support a bill that was not inclusive of transgender people. Then the last time you came on the show your position was, and we talked about the clause in the press release, pretty much that you were neutral. You were not going to tell members of Congress to vote against it, but you weren’t going to tell them to vote for it. Why then this third position? This is a third position.

JS: Well, it’s not a third position. We’ve maintained the same position since 2004, which is the one that you just described. What is changed is that the bill is now headed to the floor tomorrow, and there are, there are some Republican members and there are some Democratic members who are unsure about what they’re going to do for a variety of reasons, and the broader civil rights community—the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, us and others—made a determination to come out in support of this bill on the floor to say to those members faced with that question of whether or not to vote for that bill on the floor tomorrow, we think you ought to vote for it.

MS: Back when you put out the press release after the legislation, basically when the new legislation was created, when transgender protection was taken out, you said, you know, you wouldn’t tell members to vote for it, you wouldn’t tell members to vote against it. Why did you say anything at that point? Why not just say that we’re not gonna say what we’re gonna do? Because a lot of people feel that was the wink to members of Congress that it’s OK if you vote for this legislation without transgender people, and they saw every effort since then as really futile to keep transgender protections in the bill.

JS: But see, that position, what that position—that’s been HRC’s position since 2004, and when you say that we’ve had three different positions, what was newsworthy was that all we did, and, look, you know, hindsight is 20-20, I mean, to say why not, why didn’t we just not say anything, if, you know, if you’re suggesting we’re, you know, the leaders of the movement and we’re not gonna say anything, that would certainly not be welcomed by the community. So what we said was, you know, we basically re-stated our policy. We said this is what HRC’s policy is. It’s been our policy since 2004.

MS: No, I understand…

JS: Know that we had a policy there. Three-hundred groups, most of which never had a policy on this, all came out—state groups, local groups, groups that have absolutely no involvement in federal policy, never spoke to a member of Congress—they all developed a policy. We didn’t change our policy. We simply said at that point, this is the policy we’ve had since 2004. This is the policy we have right now.

MS: But you then did say you wouldn’t hold it against members of Congress if they voted for it—you wouldn’t tell them to support it, you wouldn’t tell them to vote against it, and that was showing your hand at a time when you didn’t need to. You could have waited until this moment now. So there was a feeling that you were signaling to them that it was OK if they didn’t include trans, if they didn’t vote for a trans-inclusive bill.

JS: I guess, you know, in retrospect the policy of HRC should be that we’re going to evaluate each circumstance as it presents itself and do what we think is in the best interest of the community.

MS: Do you apologize for your misstatement of Sept. 14? Because I don’t think you can in any way say that you did not make a pledge to only support a bill that was trans-inclusive.

JS: Ah, was I, when I, yes, when I was in Atlanta on Sept. 14, I absolutely do, and I have said that misspoke there, and when I talked about, I believe what I was talking about, and I believe that I didn’t just misstate our policy but also the circumstances, is what I meant to suggest is that we would oppose legislation being signed into law that would not include everybody.

MS: So I just want to play it again and you can say what was the misstatement.

JS (on tape): “We try to walk a thin line in terms of keeping everything in play and making sure that we move forward, but always being clear that we absolutely do not support and, in fact, oppose any legislation that is not absolutely inclusive. And we have sent that message loud and clear to the Hill.”

MS: What was the part where you were saying a misstatement?

JS: I think, if I remember correctly, what I meant to say was legislation that would be passed into law, when I talked about walking a thin line, I was saying that, and what I was implying was that, and it certainly didn’t come across that way, was there are moments like this, which we are in right now, which is the passage of a piece of legislation in the House which is certainly not likely to get to the president’s desk, but more of an exercise and a first step to lay down a marker in the House and to figure out sort of what we’re going to build on. I mean, I know you say that’s kind of a complicated inside the Beltway concept, but that’s what’s happening right now versus, you know, a law signed by the president that doesn’t include everybody.