November 9, 2007

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the future

[On November 7, just past 6 pm, the US House of Representatives voted 235-184 to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that provides for workplace protections for sexual orientation, but not for gender identity.]

From LC/NA Executive Director, Emily Eastwood,

I was away on a much needed vacation without my computer and cell phone when the quiet waters of our early work to support ENDA suddenly became filled with alligators-a-plenty which seemed eager to destroy fragile coalitions and divide our community one from the other over political strategy. While Phil Soucy, our able Director of Communications, has been keeping you abreast of nearly daily developments on ENDA, I want you to know that I too have been involved in meetings on Capitol Hill and countless conversations with our ecumenical and secular allies.

This has been a most difficult and momentous time for all of us, especially our transgender members and their families. The transgender members of our Board of Directors, Galen Smith and Lisbeth Kellogg, have been very involved and most helpful in crafting our messaging to members throughout the last few weeks. Some of you may have gotten tired of our updates, but many of you have thanked Phil and LC/NA over and over again for keeping you in the loop.

As you know, LC/NA along with more than 350 other LGBT advocacy groups supported only the fully inclusive bill. We see the House passage of protections on the basis of sexual orientation as another step in what seems the interminable quest for equality in this country. We also believe that the strategy to pass this non-inclusive bill, which has no chance to become law during this session, was deeply flawed in that it abandoned the transgender community for the sake of, what to some seems, a meaningless victory.

Still, in this quagmire of conflicting strategies, there are significant learnings for LC/NA which we must take to heart and to action:

1. Thirty plus years of education in church and society on the issues facing gay and lesbian people has produced a solid majority of representatives in the House supporting a version of ENDA limited to orientation. Marathon strategies using education, engagement, media, and careful organizing can be effective in the long run.
    
2. LC/NA was founded in 1974 as Lutherans Concerned for Gay People. In 2002 LC/NA committed to the full inclusion of bisexual and transgender persons in our Reconciling in Christ Program. Our congregational profiles of RIC churches indicates that in 2005-2006 roughly 50% of those churches had not yet adopted fully inclusive statements welcoming people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Still over 95% of congregations seeking approval to join the RIC roster since 2003 have passed fully inclusive welcome statements. Education works, but takes time to produce sustainable cultural shifts. We have much work yet to do in our own house.
    
3. The recent ENDA struggles produced an active and motivated block of LGBT advocacy groups committed to equality for the trans community. Because of the calls, emails, letters and visits of thousands of allies including many of our members, we know that trans awareness has increased exponentially on the Hill. Like the Schmeling trial in the Lutheran world, this was and is a catalyzing moment in history giving great opportunity and momentum to the quest for equality for transgender people.
    
4. Even HRC, which supported what their leadership believed was a strategic compromise to produce a win on non-inclusive ENDA, has pledged significant dollars to trans education in the districts. We must not only hold HRC accountable to this pledge but also join them and other LGBT advocacy and ministry organizations in redoubling our efforts towards trans education within the RIC community, our membership, the Lutheran communion, and beyond.
    

Sen Edward Kennedy spoke on the Senate floor yesterday, saying that he intends to introduce the bill just passed in the House. Sen Kennedy's press statement on his intention and rationale.

So, the ENDA2007 saga will continue.

I want to thank you for your support for full inclusion of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, and I ask you to join LC/NA in working to make inclusive equality a reality in our church and our world. If we share this dream and turn our private pain into public action, that dream will become a reality. With God's help, may it be so.