Congress has been in session for a month and a half and in that time members of Congress have filed over 1100 bill files in the House and 450 in the Senate, yet only one of those 1550+ bills addresses the matter of gay rights. And before a torrent of comments pours in that Congress is dealing with more important matters like the economy, let me remind you I'm speaking to the fact that the bills associated with the "Homosexual Agenda" haven't even been filed yet, but despite Congress working so hard on fixing the economy, members have managed to find the time to file 1550+ bills including bills to authorize the Commandant of the Coast Guard to issue regulations that require certain pilots on vessels operating in designated waters to carry and utilize a portable electronic device equipped for navigational purposes, and for other purposes (H.R.1100) and a bill to understand and comprehensively address the oral health problems associated with methamphetamine use (S.450). While I understand that taking up the matter of the bills will take time, the fact they haven't even been filed yet shows a lack of commitment to these issues. The only bill filed heretofore is Rep. Jerrold Nadler's H.R.1024, the Uniting American Families Act of 2009 (UAFA).
Where is the 111th Congress' version of the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or The Military Readiness Enhancement Act? Where is the bill to repeal the D[enial] of Marriage Act?
Once filed, these bills have to make their way through committee before they get to the floor and if they pass, they get sent to the other house where the process is repeated. If it passes there, a conference committee has to iron out differences in the passes bills and the final bill has to then be approved again by both houses. This obviously takes time and the longer Congress waits, the greater the chance these issues will be pushed into the 2010 election year and we all know how much Democrats simply LOVE gay rights issues being at the center of an election. With strong Democratic majorities in both houses, and a Democrat in the White House, now is the time to take up these issues which have long languished in the halls of Congress. If Democrats don't, they face the prospect of alienating a core Democratic constituency that has become increasingly impatient with the Democrats' chicken shit foot dragging.
In the early afternoon of January 20th, President Obama's new White House website went live. The site includes an area for the President's agenda including in the area of civil rights, which has a substantial, but incomplete, section on LGBT rights. Yet nothing on that list has had a bill filed yet and there has already been indications of Obama backtracking on one of the items on the list.
So what's on the list?
- Expand Hate Crime Statutes (MSLLEHCPA)
- Fight Workplace Discrimination (ENDA)
- Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples
- Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage
- Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell (MREA)
- Expand Adoption Rights
- Promote AIDS Prevention
- Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS
The only peep out of the Obama administration on these issues since taking office has been about Don't Ask, Don't Tell and that peep was an attempt to kick the issue down the road.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell
According to the 1 February 2009 edition of the Boston Globe:
The Obama administration is telling the Pentagon and gay-rights advocates that it will have to study the implications for national security and enlist more support in Congress before trying to overturn the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" law and allow gays to serve openly in the military, according to people involved in the discussions.
They said Obama, who pledged during the campaign to overturn the law, does not want to ask lawmakers to do so until the military has completed a comprehensive assessment of the impact that such a move would have on military discipline.
...
At the Pentagon, officials say they have been told not to expect the administration to seek to lift the ban quickly. One senior officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said staff officers for Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been told it will be several months at the earliest - possibly not even this year - until the top brass will be formally asked to weigh in on a change in policy.
How much more study is needed. The 1957 Crittenden report found that gays posed no risk to national security and several subsequent studies and reports, some also by the military including the 1988 and 1999 PERSEREC reports, have shown the same. Its been studied. Even if these studies and reports didn't exist, common sense alone says DADT is bad policy. From 1993 to 2003, the U.S. military discharged 88 linguists (including critical translators in Arabic, Farsi, Dari and Korean), 49 nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialists, 57 combat engineers, 90 nuclear power engineers, 52 missile guidance and control operators, 150 rocket, missile and other artillery specialists, 113 truck drivers, 153 food service workers, 234 supply administration specialists, 150 vehicle service specialists, 163 law enforcement specialists and 340 infantrymen. In 2004, 9 more languists where also discharged with 41 healthcare professionals, 30 sonar and radar specialists, 20 combat engineers, 17 law enforcement agents, 12 security guards and 7 biological and chemical warfare weapon specialists. In the statement on the White House site, they state "more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic." Your tax dollars paid to investigate and discharge these American patriots. Your tax dollars paid the costs of recruiting and training replacements. And when your tax dollars couldn't recruit or train replacements, your tax dollars got sent to Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater and numerous other private companies to fill in the gaps at many, many times the cost. The continued retention of this policy is a threat to the national security of the United States in addition to being a matter of civil rights for GLBT Americans.
No current bill in Congress has been filed to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell or to clarify military law under the UCMJ that it is not criminal for GLBT persons serving in the military to have sexual relations with a mutually consenting adult partner of their choice.
So what about the other items on the list?
Expand Hate Crime Statutes
The White House web site has this to say on hate crime law expansion:
In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. President Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, President Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.
Obama is obviously using an old snippet from some campaign literature given the use of the 2004 numbers. The FBI's Uniform Crime Report on Hate Crime Statistics for 2007 was release shortly before the election. Hate crimes against the LGBT community still constituted the third-highest category, but the report also showed that while hate crimes are down in general, they are up against the LGBT community. Moreover,an analysis I ran of the last 11 FBI Hate Crime Statistics Reports showed that in terms of hate crime incidence rate among members of the studied groups, the only community more likely to suffer a hate crime is the Jewish community. However, further analysis of the 2007 report demonstrated that the vast majority of incidences against the Jewish community are in the category of offenses against property, and more specifically the subcategory of vandalism. The GLBT community on the other hand, is more likely to suffer offenses in the category of offenses against persons, having the highest rates of any group in the subcategories of murder, aggravated assault, simple assault and second to the Jewish community in the rate of intimidation. The gist of the data? Hate crimes against gays, lesbians, bisexuals (and the transgendered though the FBI doesn't track gender identity directly) are much more likely to be against the person rather than their property and it is much, much more likely to be violent.
Last October marked the 10th anniversary of the murder of Matthew Shepard and early this week marked the one year anniversary of the murder of 15 year-old Lawrence King in the classroom of his California middle school. The prosecution of the then 14 year-old assailant is underway with the next court hearing due in about a month. In between those murders and before and after them, GLBTs continue to disproportionately be the victims of hate crimes and despite broad public support for expanding the hate crime statute to cover sexual orientation and gender identity (68% according to Gallup in 2007) Congress has failed to send a bill to do that to the President. The Matthew Shepard Act passed both houses of Congress in 2007 as part of a DOD reauthorization bill, but was removed in conference committee after Bush threatened to veto the bill if the hate crimes provisions were included.
The Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act has not been re-filed in the 11th Congress.
Fight Workplace Discrimination
On this issue, the White House position states
President Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees' domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. The President also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Support for this has been at 80% or higher since 1993. You read that right: 80%+ support since 1993. To put that in graphical form:
(source: Gallup)
Know how many times it has passed even just one house of Congress in the last 16 years? Once...in 2007...after Democrats knifed the LGBT community by unceremoniously striping out of the gender identity protections and precipitating an argument within the LGBT community over whether or not to support a non-inclusive version of ENDA. Only Democrats can find a way to lose on an issue where the American people are split 89-8 in their favor.
As of yet, neither the gender identity inclusive or the non-inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act has been filed in either house.
Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples
On this issue, Obama states
President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.
Translation into realspeak: "Segregation now! Segregation Tomorrow! Segregation for as long as we bigoted hetrosexists feel like it!"
What's next? Resegregating public schools based on race, making sure that black schools are as well funded and staffed as white schools, but allaying the concerns of anti-black extremists over the use of the words schools for the black educational institutions by calling them "centers for Negro achievement" instead? Should we rebranded the union of Obama's parents to the level of being a "civil union"? After all bans against race mixing marriages were among the first statutes issues in many of the colonies and predate the ratification of the Constitution and the 14th Amendment. Despite the overwhelming history that unions of a black and a white were not marriages and not legally valid and indeed criminal in some cases, the Supreme Court rightfully struck those laws down. If this were any other issue be it race, sex, religion, ethnicity, national origin, would there be any doubt that Obama's position and indeed that of many leading Democrats is completely and utterly bigoted? They are segregationists and ought to be ashamed.
No bill repealing the D[enial] of Marriage Act or creating federal civil unions or requiring states to create civil unions of recognizing the legal unions of same sex couples in Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Vermont, etc has been filed.
Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage
President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.
This is about as commendable as it would have been for Strom Thurmond in 1948 to vote against an amendment defining African-Americans as 3/5 of a person. What are we supposed to say, Mr. President? "Thank you for not taking a crap on us and not demoting us to tenth class citizenship." Ben Nelson and Robert Byrd ought to be ashamed for having voted for cloture on that piece of excrement, especially Byrd given his KKK past.
The Federal Marriage Amendment has not been refiled, though Ron Paul (RL-TX) has filed a bill to exclude from the jurisdiction of the federal courts, the ability of any federal court to ruling on marriage equality or force states to create marriage judicially.
Expand Adoption Rights
Since the marriage horse has been kick beyond death at the state level in many deep red and far too many not so red states, the popular issue to move on to is adoption by GLBT individuals and couples. Currently Florida, Mississippi, Utah and Arkansas ban GLBT individuals or couples in some form or fashion (some using the proxy classification of unmarried couples) from adopting children. There are approximately 120,000 children waiting to be adopted in this country and there are many thousands more children who are atleast temporarily in foster care. At a time of such need, excluding qualified, willing people from serving as adoptive or foster parents is unconscionable. But even if there wasn't such a need, such exclusion are unjustified. The right to marry and found a family are two of the most basic rights in our society and no one should be excluded from those rights without meeting a very high burden of proof. Study after study by psychologists, sociologists and others in similar fields have proven GLBT parents are no worse then Str8 parents and often times can be better because of one important aspect: When a GLBT person or couple adopts or undergoes alternative conception techniques to have a child, the number of legal, social, medical, fiscal hoops they have to jump through compared to the average str8 means that those GLBTs that do have children have a level of commitment to parenting above and beyond the average str8. Any str8 couple can get knocked up and have an unwanted kid by accident. A GLBT couple has to make a long and conscious choice to become parents.
I am unaware of any bill that has been filed that will address adoption rights for LGBT couples or individuals.
Addendum: I just wanted to add a link and give a plug to boofdah for a great diary on adoption and Florida's draconian ban:"I am a homosexual." Check Yes or No. The part of the app that chaps my hide.
Promote AIDS Prevention & Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS
This lies outside my area of expertise in terms of GLBT rights, but is no doubt important. We are in need of a major overhaul of sex education in this country. For a start, we need to abandon the Republican's abstinence ignorance only sex ed model and instead arm people, especially young people as they start to become sexually aware, with real facts on sex, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases like HIV. We also need to foster a greater understanding and compassion for who have been infected to insure they are welcomed members of society. We also need to continue the research for a cure, not just for Americans, but for the millions worldwide living with AIDS. The epidemic in Africa is a timebomb waiting to explode. What do you do when one third to one half of the population of your country is dead or dying from a disease that prevents those infected from contributing to society, your economic situation makes buying medicine to alleviate the pain and suffering impossible and missionaries preaching and converting your people rail against the sin of using protection to prevent the spread of STDs. As Sarah and Bristol Palin noted this week, abstinence in not realistic.
That covers the list on WhiteHouse.gov dealing with LGBT issues, however there are many other issues that didn't make the list. Tomorrow, in Part 2, I'll discuss the GLBT issues where Obama is AWOL (i.e. those that didn't make the White House list).
Update: I forgot to include a link to smellybeast's great diary about the struggle she and her girlfriend are enduring in staying in this country and why Rep. Nadler's bill, the Uniting American Families Act is so important. So many bi-national GLBT couples are being forced to leave this country because they can't secure visas for their partners to stay.