On the ENDA-T Conundrum
---
As someone who cannot imagine himself as a politician, I can only — as Billy Joel might say — stand apart and sympathize:
Again, I can't "think like a politician," but I keep circling back to my position on hate crimes and whether libertarians should support adding sexual orientation to the list of included classes. I stick to my view that it is no betrayal of libertarian principles to insist that a law that you may disagree with facially at least be applied as reasonably and as consistently as possible. Stated differently, even if a libertarian paradise would have neither room nor need for a hate crimes law, the fact that we have one demands that it be the most objectively sensible one possible — and that in turn demands that sexual orientation be included. A bad law applied well is better than a bad law applied badly.
So too with marriage: Shame on those libertarians who cowered behind the perhaps-true-but-utterly-pointless protest that "government should get out of the marriage business" — rather than to insist that, given that legal marriage exists, it ought be fairly and equally available to all.
Perhaps ENDA itself is a bad idea. Perhaps an economy comprising exclusively libertarian-capitalists (who by definition do not irrationally discriminate contrary to their own economic self-interest) would find ENDA — and the behavior that generates the need for it — puzzling curiosities. But given that anti-discrimination laws are here, does not the libertarian imperative for fair and equal application of laws insist that gays and the transgendered be included in such laws?
---
Gay activist groups, meanwhile, are also grappling with the ENDA-T conundrum: can they endorse a gay rights bill that excludes one of their constituencies? There are reports that directors of the Human Rights Campaign are threatening to resign if HRC comes out in favor of the no-T version of the bill. I could just as easily see directors threatening to resign if they didn't support it. The organization has yet to take a clear position — which itself is drawing criticism from some of its members. The National Stonewall Democrats, meanwhile, have come out unambiguously against the no-T version, as has the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Since many of these organizations are perpetually in bed with the same Democratic leaders (i.e. Pelosi and Frank) who are now "selling out" the transgendered, one can imagine how much egg is being wiped off how many gay liberal Democratic faces. (Pelosi is the Guest of Honor at HRC's National Dinner this coming Saturday.)
Lambda Legal, meanwhile, emphasizes that: "The recent version is not simply the old version with the transgender protections stripped out — but rather has modified the old version in several additional and troubling ways. They explain here.
---
Here is a statement from Barney Frank. More thoughts at Straight Not Narrow, The Gist, Pam's House Blend, Obsidian Wings.
---
The latest development is that Pelosi and Frank have delayed the final mark-up of the bill pending resolution of all this politics most foul.
Even as the Senate passed a hate crimes bill sought for a decade by gays and lesbians, House Democratic leaders decided Thursday to strip transgender people from another long-languishing civil rights bill, generating dismay in the gay community and furious but fruitless lobbying for more time.Tough call for gay activists and gay-friendly politicians: Take what you can get, or take a principled if martyred stand for what you think is right?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Reps. George Miller, D-Martinez, Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., believe that they lack the votes in the Democrat-controlled House to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act if it includes gender identity along with sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for firing an employee.
...
Gay activists argued that transgender people are among those most in need of discrimination protection. Getting some future bill passed just for them will be much harder than including them now with gays and lesbians, who are increasingly accepted by society. Activists were outraged.
Again, I can't "think like a politician," but I keep circling back to my position on hate crimes and whether libertarians should support adding sexual orientation to the list of included classes. I stick to my view that it is no betrayal of libertarian principles to insist that a law that you may disagree with facially at least be applied as reasonably and as consistently as possible. Stated differently, even if a libertarian paradise would have neither room nor need for a hate crimes law, the fact that we have one demands that it be the most objectively sensible one possible — and that in turn demands that sexual orientation be included. A bad law applied well is better than a bad law applied badly.
So too with marriage: Shame on those libertarians who cowered behind the perhaps-true-but-utterly-pointless protest that "government should get out of the marriage business" — rather than to insist that, given that legal marriage exists, it ought be fairly and equally available to all.
Perhaps ENDA itself is a bad idea. Perhaps an economy comprising exclusively libertarian-capitalists (who by definition do not irrationally discriminate contrary to their own economic self-interest) would find ENDA — and the behavior that generates the need for it — puzzling curiosities. But given that anti-discrimination laws are here, does not the libertarian imperative for fair and equal application of laws insist that gays and the transgendered be included in such laws?
---
Gay activist groups, meanwhile, are also grappling with the ENDA-T conundrum: can they endorse a gay rights bill that excludes one of their constituencies? There are reports that directors of the Human Rights Campaign are threatening to resign if HRC comes out in favor of the no-T version of the bill. I could just as easily see directors threatening to resign if they didn't support it. The organization has yet to take a clear position — which itself is drawing criticism from some of its members. The National Stonewall Democrats, meanwhile, have come out unambiguously against the no-T version, as has the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Since many of these organizations are perpetually in bed with the same Democratic leaders (i.e. Pelosi and Frank) who are now "selling out" the transgendered, one can imagine how much egg is being wiped off how many gay liberal Democratic faces. (Pelosi is the Guest of Honor at HRC's National Dinner this coming Saturday.)
Lambda Legal, meanwhile, emphasizes that: "The recent version is not simply the old version with the transgender protections stripped out — but rather has modified the old version in several additional and troubling ways. They explain here.
---
Here is a statement from Barney Frank. More thoughts at Straight Not Narrow, The Gist, Pam's House Blend, Obsidian Wings.
---
The latest development is that Pelosi and Frank have delayed the final mark-up of the bill pending resolution of all this politics most foul.
Posted by Kip on
1 October 2007
To comment on this post, please visit the new blogsite.