OPINION

ENDA Origins
What started as a good thing went bad—thanks to HRC and Barney Frank.

By Allen Roskoff
Friday, April 25, 2008

In 1971, Jim Owles, Marty Robinson and I confronted both Bella Abzug and Ed Koch—both were U.S. Representatives at the time—at a meeting of the Village Independent Democrats and demanded to know what they were doing in Congress to eliminate discrimination against gay men and lesbians. Bella called us into her office, and we met with her and her chief of staff Dora Friedman. We walked out with a commitment that she would introduce an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation as a protected class. Koch followed suit and we had a gay-inclusive Civil Rights Bill introduced into the halls of Congress.

Bella was a national feminist, an articulate, intense, and loving earth mother to young gays in the movement. Bella would never have been subservient to a Republican mayor or an Assembly speaker. The forever-closeted Koch at that time was not as conservative, mean, cruel and Republican as he later became.

The Abzug-Koch bill would have added sexual orientation to the other classes protected against discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, credit and public accommodations. (Given the evolution of our understanding since 1971, such a bill today would also cover gender identity and expression.)

We had, I believe, some 40 co-sponsors for the original bill, including the legendary Shirley Chisholm. We knew better than to expect immediate passage, but it was a vehicle that forced senators, members of Congress, presidential candidates, and other opinion- and policy-makers to be part of the solution or part of the problem.

The movement was united in demanding total equality—nothing more, nothing less. We were a progressive movement and activists, not professional politicians.

We celebrated the bill at a Gay Activist Alliance meeting and the bill was talked about at the City Council hearings at City Hall.

THEN ALONG CAME the Human Rights Campaign and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). They pulled the rug out from under us and persuaded Congress to withdraw the original amendment to the Civil Rights Bill and replace it with a limited new bill. You’ve probably heard of it: the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

ENDA only covers employment and therefore does not offer the full range of protections given to the other protected categories. In that regard, it is a separate and less-than-equal piece of legislation.

During the Presidential Primaries in 2000, a group of gay leaders met with then-presidential candidate Bill Bradley and asked him to consider urging that the 1964 Civil Rights act be amended to include discrimination based on sexual orientation. Bradley agreed and made it part of his platform. Vice-President Al Gore, who was the Democratic frontrunner for the nomination did not. Bradley said that Congress adding sexual orientation to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “...would clearly indicate that discrimination against gays is every bit as serious as discrimination against other protected groups.”

At that time, the canard was raised that opening up the 1964 Civil Rights Act could lead to amendments to decrease equality for other minorities, including people of color.
Even a Republican Congress could not get away with that, and if they wanted to try something that crazy, they would not need to wait for our bill to do so.

This argument is nothing more than a red herring designed to dilute our full equality.
It has been clear for years that both HRC and Frank are more conservative than mainstream LGBT activists throughout the country. Nonetheless, Frank’s colleagues have allowed him to take the lead on LGBT issues.

Recently Frank had his way again by having gender identity and expression omitted from the present ENDA, even though that change excludes all transgendered people and any gay men or lesbians who do not conform to strict gender roles.

Only seven members of Congress—including five from New York—had the courage to stand up to him and vote against ENDA last fall based on the grounds that it excluded gender identity and expression.

When they called Frank to explain their principled positions, he went ballistic. To add insult to injury, the spiteful HRC is now penalizing these courageous members of Congress by having them scored as voting against the community on HRC’s annual legislative voting scorecard.

I ENCOURAGE OUR community to continue the boycott of HRC and to confront Frank wherever possible. As activist Larry Kramer said in 2005 in an email to The Advocate: “I do not know what place [HRC] has in the community. I do not know what it does. I do not think it would make one bit of difference if they disappeared tomorrow.”

In the same issue of The Advocate, Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, said, “People want to know what the largest LGBT organization in the country has delivered for them.”

In 2007 Kramer said in another interview, “I see everyone ass kissing…I think HRC —it gives the word ‘beggar’ new meaning when it comes to dealing with these candidates.”
And finally in a March 2007 interview Kramer says, "HRC is almost worthless, and has been since the day it was born.”

I applaud all the elected officials who stayed away from this year’s New York HRC dinner; the fact that not one attended speaks volumes.

If only HRC’s rich donors cared as much about a progressive agenda.

I helped put together the first HRC dinner in New York at the Waldorf and now upon reflection, I regret that.

I am tired of members of Congress expressing that they are afraid of pissing off Barney Frank, even at the expense of the LGBT community and transgender people in particular.

I am appalled that Barney Frank gave his colleagues a pass on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996. We, as a community, need to bypass HRC and Barney Frank and stop this ass kissing to the establishment in the Democratic Party.

We need to regain the spirit of the Gay Activists Alliance and fight for total equality. Let’s stand together for the inclusive and comprehensive protection of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Let’s not enact a law that codifies anything less than equal protection.

Allen Roskoff is a longtime gay rights activist. He is now president of the citywide Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club.

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