Senator Elizabeth Warren Floor Speech on ENDA

Senator Elizabeth Warren delivered remarks about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) on the Senate floor, on November 6, 2013

Read also : ‘Asterisk Equality’ Isn’t Real Equality: Fighting for an ENDA Without Exemptions

Senator Elizabeth Warren : Floor Speech on the Employment Non-­‐Discrimination Act (ENDA) November 6, 2013

Madam President, I rise today to speak about the importance of passing the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, a bill that I am proud to co-­‐sponsor and to support.

It has taken us far too long to arrive at this day. For nearly forty years, Members of Congress have worked to pass legislation that would protect LGBT Americans from discrimination in the workplace.

Much has changed since Bella Abzug introduced the Equality Act of 1974. Equal marriage is now the law in fourteen states. Twenty-­‐one states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to protect against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, and sixteen states and the District of Columbia also protect against gender identity discrimination. The Supreme Court has rejected DOMA, a law that legalized discrimination against same-­‐sex spouses, by calling that law exactly what it was – unconstitutional.

In the private sector, a majority of Fortune 500 companies have adopted policies to protect workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and polling data show that a majority of small businesses have similar policies in place. By nearly every measure, we have made progress in the long march toward equality.

And yet, in the face of all of this progress, nearly a half-­‐century since Congress first enacted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act – prohibiting employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin – we still have not extended these basic federal protections to LGBT Americans. Let’s not mince words here. The failure to treat all our citizens with the same dignity is shameful. In America, equal means equal.

Many have tried hard to reach this day, and our legislators from Massachusetts have long been leaders in the fight. Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman Barney Frank both spent decades working on this issue. Senator Paul Tsongas from Massachusetts introduced the first Senate bill to prohibit employment discrimination against LGBT Americans all the way back in 1979.

But progress has been slow. The last time the full Senate voted on ENDA was seventeen years ago, when a version of the law championed by Senator Kennedy failed to pass by a single vote – 49 to50 – back in 1996. In 2007, the House passed a version of ENDA introduced by Congressman Frank, but the bill made no progress in the Senate. Today, there are 55 cosponsors of ENDA in the Senate – Democrats and Republicans – representing the broad majority support for the bill, signaling that tremendous progress has been made.

It is all the more shameful that it has taken us this long to arrive at this day because Americans believe in equality. According to one survey, some 80% of Americans believe that it is already illegal to discriminate against workers based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Unfortunately, however, this is one of the rare instances where the American people are giving Congress way too much credit, because the truth is – we haven’t acted yet. And the consequences of Congressional inaction remain all too real for millions of LGBT Americans.

Despite the successful efforts in many states to pass nondiscrimination measures, Americans living in over half the country can still be discriminated against in the workplace based on sexual orientation or gender identity. And it happens. Between 15% and 43% of LGBT individuals have reported experiencing discrimination or harassment in the workplace.

A quarter of transgender Americans have reported being fired from a job due to their gender identity, and a whopping 90% have reported experiencing harassment and mistreatment. There’s been a lot of progress toward a more inclusive nation, but for LGBT workers, a law to stop employment discrimination can’t come fast enough.

The Employment Non-­‐Discrimination Act pending in the Senate will protect LGBT individuals in the workplace, update the law to reflect what the vast majority of Americans already believe is the law, and help fulfill our constitutional responsibility to protect equality in this nation. ENDA doesn’t provide any special rights to any particular groups of Americans. It does not compel any religious organization to change its views. It just creates a level playing field for LGBT workers; it makes sure that all workers are judged by the work they do, not by who they are or whom they love.

America is ready for this day. An overwhelming majority of voters, both Democrats and Republicans, support the enactment of this law. They know it reflects the values of our nation.

And America’s businesses are ready too. Recent polling shows that a large majority of small businesses supports the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. As for big businesses, 88% of Fortune 500 companies have already implemented policies prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians in the workplace.

Raytheon, one of the nation’s top defense contractors and a proud Massachusetts-­‐based company, bars LGBT discrimination. One executive at Raytheon was quoted as saying that the organization’s “culture of inclusion absolutely gives us a recruiting edge” when it comes to hiring the best and the brightest.

Shortly before his death, in March of 2009, Senator Kennedy joined with Senators Merkley, Collins, and Snowe in what would be his final attempt to push this bipartisan legislation over the finish line. At the time, Senator Kennedy eloquently explained his continuing support for the ENDA by noting that “the promise of America will never be fulfilled as long as justice is denied to even one among us.” Those words were true in 1974 when Bella Abzug introduced the Equality Act. Those words were true when the Senate came within one vote of passing ENDA in 1996. Those words were true when Senator Kennedy offered them in 2009. And those words are true today. The promise of America will never be fulfilled so long as justice is denied to even one among us.

We deal with a lot of different kinds of legislation in the Senate. This week we have a chance to vote on a law that is a measure of who we are as a people and what kind of world we want to build. I believe in a world where equal means equal, and that is why I will be voting to outlaw employment discrimination against my neighbors and my friends.

Senator Kennedy, Senator Tsongas, and Congresswoman Abzug, are no longer with us, but like so many others, they fought so hard to get us here – to get us one step closer to equality for all of us. It has taken us far too long to arrive at this day. But we are here now, and we are not going back.

Read Sen. Warren's press release : Senator Warren Urges Colleagues to Pass ENDA

Opening Digital Firehoses On LGBT Activists

Confronting the President of Magical Thinking : A Vocation of Agony

Barack Obama and his family, the vice president and his family, other government officials, and their supporters celebrated the president's second inauguration today, which coïncided with the federal holiday commemorating the life and accomplishments of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

LGBT Americans were jubilant, because the president said some aspirational words in the second half of his inaugural address.

"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well."

Immediately, the president's supporters acted in lock-step to express support for this expression of a longing for equality.

Corey Johnson is an up-and-coming LGBT politician, who is patterning himself after New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's doctrine of putting politically-expedient identity politics before having to deliver any government reforms. Note how the president failed to say the words lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered in "LGBT," but already the president's supporters were having to say the words that the president found unspeakable.

It appears that Mr. Johnson's excitement could be being based not so much on the president's promise of legal reforms that would result in LGBT equality, but, rather, on political party discipline that calls for a self-motivated unity in messaging to sway Progressive voters into believing that the Democratic Party was on their side.

But for the incomplete messaging that the president's words offer, there is no plan attached to how the president plans to "complete" our "journey."

On Facebook, some LGBT activists picked up on the incomplete messaging in the president's rhetoric, because they had noticed a pattern in his prior speeches.

Some LGBT activists were already picking up how President Obama was unable to utter the words lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.

To the president's army of speech writers, did those words lack any dignity and respect, and, therefore, did not need to be mentioned ?

In his speech during his second inaugural ceremonies, President Obama seemed to be channeling the "great communicator," who, we may all remember, was notable for his failure to uttered the word "AIDS" until after thousands of people had died.

Many of the president's supporters have made a choice to be excited for the president's re-election. But ...

"By the time President Reagan had delivered his first speech on the epidemic, of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with the disease; 20,849 had died," Randy Shilts once wrote. Along a similar vein, when will President Obama say all the words in LGBT ?

So many people want to believe in the hope, change, and love that the president so skillfully articulates in his scripted speeches. We are supposed to want to believe in the magical thinking that the president really is on our side, because doesn't he, after all, say so many nice things that he knows that we want to hear ?

While President Obama's lack of clear communication during this inaugural address may not lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of our "gay brothers and sisters," he nonetheless sets the tone for that which the American people become familiar : either feelings of shame and embarrassment that prevent a president from mentioning lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered Americans, or feelings of equality and respect by dignifying and acknowledging the journeys still being made by lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered Americans.

Some activists on Facebook took a more diplomatic, but forward-looking approach to the editing of the president's words : by using the occasion of the president's rhetoric to build forward momentum on the social movement for LGBT equality in the United States.

The hopes and actions of LGBT Americans and their allies are to fulfill on our shared dream for equality.

But LGBT activists and allies already exchange amongst ourselves the vision and prayers for equality.

For all the president's rhetoric, we already seem to have, at first blush, the president's love and affinity for our community, at least that which could be expressed in his own way. What we need now is action.

The longer LGBT Americans have to wait for full federal recognition of their equal rights, the more that members of our community remain fully exposed to legally-permitted forms of discrimination in broad areas of their life, including in the workplace.

The skepticism within the LGBT community about President Obama's commitment to true LGBT equality stems from some major examples of actions that the president refuses to take, which contradicts his rhetoric.

For example, the president refuses to sign the Federal Contractor's Employment Protections Executive Order. National LGBT civil rights groups, such as GetEQUAL, have been mounting a multi-prong campaign to pressure the president to sign the executive order, but the president refuses.

President Obama embarrassed both his administration and the Democratic Party by once having said that while he was nominally committed to the idea that all Americans shared the same civil rights, he still had to "evolve" on marriage equality. It was as if President Obama was admitting that his thoughts on civil rights resembled that of someone a little bit ignorant and a little bit intolerant, like former commissioner Bull Connor, who once, among other depraved acts of discrimination, ordered the opening up of firehoses on African American civil rights activists.

Surely, President Obama was not seriously putting himself into the same league as Bull Connor, but why was the president torturing hisself by proclaiming in speech his support for LGBT equality that could not be matched by his actions ?

And lest we neglect to mention how so many people conveniently seem to forget to remember how it took a national campaign of civil disobedience, among other actions, for national Democratic Party legislators to repeal the military's discriminatory policy known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The president's political operatives love to mention how the president "repealed" DADT, but they overlook what it took to get a bill introduced in and voted by Congress.

And if the constant push and pull amongst LGBT activists and civil rights groups to define a winning national strategy to deliver a full federal equality bill through Congress wasn't enough, activists must contend with the political trappings of trying to challenge a president who says all the right things and knows how to manipulate support for his administration. And then there are the other unknown, but nonetheless predictable, obstacles for LGBT activists as they set out to challenge power holders, who fail to act to end de jure and de fact discrimination.

While community organising and activism has evolved since the 1960's with the advent of online tools and other empowering platforms of the Internet like Facebook, YouTube, and blogging, every now and then activists must overcome the occasional opening up of digital firehoses.

Read also : President Obama Must Evolve Again on Marriage Equality

RT @occupylondon Obama is no Martin Luther King! n0.gd/10S4rAe n0.gd/WWZLk2 #mlk #mlkday #occupy

— OccupyBot (@occupybot) January 23, 2013

President Obama Refuses To Sign An LGBT Anti-Discrimination Executive Order

President Barack Obama refuses to sign an Executive Order, which would bar federal contractors from discriminating based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

More and more, the LGBT community is seeing that President Obama is spineless, and few, if any, of the supposed LGBT allies in Congress will do anything to put pressure on the President to do the right thing. This, from HuffPost :

"A similar Executive Order preventing discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of race, gender and religion was signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The White House said instead it would try to rally support in Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), though a vote on any gay rights measure is highly unlikely in the GOP-controlled House, and that it would urge the private sector to support non-discrimination.
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