Yesterday, openly gay Colorado Representative Jared Polis announced that he is working on developing a bill that will cover a comprehensive range of LGBT issues into a single piece of legislation...and he's looking for help and ideas from you. Polis and the Fearless Campaign are conducting a survey to gather input and collect stories that can possibly be used to help advance the comprehensive legislation in the future.
This has been something I and many others have advocated for a while now. Since the 1980's, the approach has been to chop up LGBT equality into little tiny pieces and try passing those little pieces one at a time on the belief that since it is so small, it will be of such little significance that Republicans won't care. We'll they do care. The level to which they will stoop to stop any and all legislation beneficial to LGBT people knows no depths, from blocking popular proposals such as ENDA and a repeal of DADT to canceling municipal non-discrimination ordinances at the local level. Their degree of hate for LGBT people is perhaps only surpassed by their unbounded avarice.
This division of LGBT issues up into tiny pieces has had another side affect that has continually been an obstacle to passing such laws: the ate so insignificant the larger LGBT community doesn't care. By assembling importnat LGBT issues into a single bill, we can create an act that not only will advance the movement for equality, but will also impact most LGBT people in some way to the extent that the bill will be worth fighting for. This could be our Civil Rights Act of 1964 moment.
But to be that transformative piece of legislation, we need to get everyone in the LGBT community on board by getting lots of different issues addressed in the bill. This is where your input is needed in the survey.
The survey lists seven issues that may be included: employment non-discrimination, anti-bullying, marriage equality, adoption equality, immigration sponsorship for same-sex partners, increased AIDS/HV funding and equal benefits for same-sex partners and spouses of Federal employees, but it also solicits for more issues that should be considered as the bill is drafted.
I'd like to name off a few that aren't among the seven, but I think are worthy of consideration for the bill:
We talk so much about employment non-discrimination because that has been one of the tiny pieces that has been pushed for so long, but we forget that when the first bill trying to enact employment non-discrimination for gays and lesbians was introduced 37 years ago last month, it also included non-discrimination in public accommodations and housing. We also should forget about discrimination in the extension of credit and lending. Just as a restaurant shouldn't be able to fire a waiter for being gay, that should also not be allowed to deny service to a same sex couple. Just as an apartment complex shouldn't be allowed to fire a bisexual from their maintenance staff, they shouldn't be allowed to refuse to rent to a gay person. Just as a bank should not be able to fire a transgendered teller, they shouldn't be allowed to deny credit or a mortgage to a lesbian. The public accommodation, housing and credit/lending aspects should be a part of the bill, housing in particular given the appalling rate of homelessness among the transgendered.
Another item not on the list that is oddly enough similar to one that is on the list, SNDA, is seniors. While we absolutely need to do all we can to protect young people including LGBT youth who are at much greater risk of suicide and bullying, we shouldn't forget the other segment of the population often that can be helpless and at risk for abuse. Just as SNDA would make it illegal for educational institutions receiving federal funds to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, we should also bar nursing and retirement centers that are recipients of federal dollars from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and encourage them to address the special needs of LGBT seniors.
I'd also like to see Congress clarify if not expand the Equal Access Act to make it more abundantly clear that schools cannot discriminate against LGBT student organizations if they permit any non-curricular student organizations. Recently a school in Corpus Christi, Texas sought to deny recognition to a gay-straight alliance student group, only permitting the group to form (by today by coincidence) because of the threat of lawsuit from the ALCU of Texas and LGBT Rights Project. That story really hit home for me because it was the school district I attended for 13 years (K through 12) and from which I graduated.
Lastly, I'd like to mention a issue that hasn't really had a concrete case yet to my knowledge, but one I'd like to nip in the bud before it does. As we all know, the D[enial] of Marriage Act (DOMA) purports to allows states to deny Full Faith and Credit to the marriages performed in another state. This is done on the premise that marriage certificates are merely public records and do not enjoy they same degree of validity across state lines as things such as court judgments. Well, guess what else is also merely a public record and not a judgment...birth certificates. If a same sex couple married in Massachusetts have a child, the child is listed on the birth certificate as the child of both parents because the child is the product of the marriage. However, a state, say Oklahoma, that bans any and all recognition in any form or fashion of same sex marriage may not only hold the marriage certificate of the couple invalid, but also the birth certificate of their child since the paternity on that birth certificate is based on a document they consider to be a legal nullity. This cannot stand. Let's keep this from every being an issue by Congress using its authority under the Full Faith and Credit Clause to require the states to give FF&C to the valid birth certificates of another state irrespective of the paternity recognized in the issuing state.
These are my own humble contributions to the survey. What are your's?