“NewsWrap"
for the week ending November 10, 2007
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,024, distributed 11-12-07)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]

Reported this week by Christopher Gaal and Rick Watts

  In a victory that was both significant and Pyrrhic, the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on November 7th passed ENDA -- the Employment Non-Discrimination Act -- by a vote of 235 to 184, mostly along party lines. It was the first time in more than 30 years of lobbying by queer activists for federal job protections that a vote has been held on the House floor, even though gender identity was not included.  While a companion measure has yet to be introduced in the Senate, Republican President George W. Bush has signaled that he will veto any such anti-bias legislation that reaches his desk.
The House-approved ENDA would protect most lesbigay people from workplace discrimination.  However, critics charged that the decision by lead sponsor and openly gay Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and the Democratic leadership to jettison protections based on gender identity to get the bill passed not only abandoned the transgender community, but that gays or lesbians who don't conform to gender stereotypes might not be protected by it.
An amendment to restore transgender protections was introduced by openly lesbian Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin - ENDA's original co-sponsor who broke with Frank in late September over his recommendation to strip those provisions out of the bill.  But she withdrew her amendment, acknowledging that she had been unable to muster a voting majority.  Some advocates for transgender rights worried that if the amendment had been overwhelmingly defeated it could have crippled efforts to pass gender identity protections in the future.

  A coalition of more than 300 U.S. LGBT organizations and many of their allies, led by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, had lobbied for the restoration of transgender protections, most opposing passage of the bill without them.  The country's largest queer advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign, was virtually alone in its support for a transgender-less ENDA.  While lamenting their exclusion, it has vowed to press for transgender protections down the road.
The organization lost some of its Board members over its position on that issue.  HRC had reportedly assured other LGBT advocacy groups that it would not actively lobby for passage of a lesbigay-only ENDA.  Executive Director Joe Solmonese explained a last-minute reversal, however, by saying that, "we felt that in the long-term interest of the community and the movement it should not be defeated."
The group, through a story in the “Advocate” a day before the vote, had trumpeted a survey it said it commissioned that week claiming that "70% of LGBT Americans prefer passing an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that does not cover transgender people over not passing the bill at all."  But the story failed to specify who had conducted the poll, which “LGBT Americans” had been surveyed, and didn't include a “margin of error” percentage that typically accompanies such reports.
Three days later the “Advocate” published another story saying that the poll had actually been taken three weeks earlier than their original report, and was “a random survey of 514 LGBT Americans conducted by Knowledge Networks, Inc., of Menlo Park, California� between Occtober 2nd and 5th.”  The story described the questions asked and included a demographic breakdown.  Notably, it revealed that only six of the respondents identified as transgender, and there was still no information in the story about a margin of error.
In the end, however, more critical questions remain about the lingering effects of a publicly divisive debate within the LGBT communities over passage of what everyone agrees was at best a flawed bill that had no real chance of becoming law anyway.

  Meanwhile, at least 31 U.S. candidates endorsed by the LGBT political action group the Victory Fund were victorious during off-year elections this week.
They included Craig Covey, who clinched the mayoral race in Ferndale, Michigan, becoming the state's first openly gay mayor.  Tim Eustace was elected mayor of Maywood, New Jersey, while Garden State Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, who came out during his first term, won re-election.  Duluth City Council winner Jeffrey Anderson becomes the first openly gay elected official in northern Minnesota; and Brian Bates, in winning a seat on the Doraville City Council, is the first “out” Republican to be elected in Georgia.  Transgender candidate Michelle Bruce received the most votes and will be in a runoff to defend her seat on the Riverdale, Georgia, City Council; and despite anti-gay smears by one of his opponents, Joel Burns received the most votes and heads to a runoff election for a seat on the Fort Worth, Texas City Council.
San Francisco's “straight but not narrow” mayor Gavin Newsom, who spearheaded legal marriage ceremonies for same-gender couples in his city before the state Supreme Court invalidated them, was also overwhelmingly re-elected.

  Elsewhere, the coalition government of Australia's Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard, facing likely defeat in November 24th national elections, has made a last-ditch effort to attract LGBT voters.
His government pledged this week that if re-elected it would support a law for same-gender couples giving them the same rights to pensions that married couples have.
But the Howard administration has actively resisted any legal recognition for same-gender couples at the federal level for more than a decade, and most recently quashed attempts by the Australian Capital Territory to enact civil unions legislation, so the surprise announcement was greeted largely with disdain by queer activists as little more than an election ploy to make the government appear more moderate.
The federal Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission issued a report in June urging changes to 58 laws to remedy inequities for same-gender couples.  A headlined story in the “Sydney Morning Herald” this week criticized the latest government move: “One law changes, 57 stay?” it asked.  “No thanks.”
The opposition Labor Party, ahead in public opinion polls, has pledged to implement the Commission's full report if elected.  However, party leader Kevin Rudd is opposed to same-gender marriage.  Only Australia's relatively small Green Party, with its openly gay leader Bob Brown, supports full marriage equality.

  The South Korean government has announced that it has stripped LGBT civil rights from new anti-discrimination legislation.
The government had pledged in October to introduce a new "all inclusive" bill that protected gays, lesbians and transgenders among 20 listed categories.  But that mobilized the country's burgeoning conservative Christian movement to argue that the proposed bill would allow “homosexuals… to seduce everyone” and force Christian businesses to hire people against their religious convictions.  The number of evangelical Christian churches has grown steadily in the traditionally Buddhist country in recent years, and they've become a vocal political force.  Bowing to their pressure, the Justice Ministry said this week that it had removed sexuality and gender identity from the bill, along with several other categories including nationality and language spoken.
Human Rights Watch noted that “The proposed new law was intended to strengthen the existing National Human Rights Commission Act, which already bars discrimination on the basis of most categories, including sexual orientation, by requiring the president and other levels of government to develop plans to eliminate discrimination.  But as revised by the Justice Ministry, the new law would actually remove protections [for] many groups.”
LGBT and other human rights activists denounced the reversal at a Seoul press conference, and called on the government to reinstate protections for sexual minorities.  "By eliminating the� clauses in which the mostt discriminative acts take place,” they said in a joint statement, “this law becomes one that rather fosters discrimination."
Lesbian activist Han Chae-yoon told reporters that she and others would “fight to the end until the government withdraws its legislation."

  And finally, “poofter” has for decades been a British slang word for “gay”... but in the U.S. it apparently took authorities in Virginia several years to discover that.  And now the state's Department of Motor Vehicles has written to the owner of license plates with that word - 42-year-old David Phillips - saying that they are “socially, racially or ethnically offensive or disparaging [and] you must return them."
Phillips, a computer consultant, told the “Washington Post” that he's driven his car with the “poofter” plates over 200,000 miles during the past 11 years and never heard a complaint.  For four years before that he displayed license plates that said  “NANC BOY” - referencing another pejorative, “nancy boy” - and also, he says, with no complaints.
He recalls first hearing entertainer Boy George using the word “poofter” during a U.S. television interview, and that “It's just an amusing word that I self-identify with.”
He says he'll go to court if necessary to keep his “poofter” plates.  But judges have generally rejected similar requests.  A lesbian couple lost a legal battle ten years ago to keep their “2DYKES” license plates.
Phillips says he's a realist, so he's already thinking about a possible new battle.  "I wonder,” he asks, “what they would do with a word like 'queer.'"


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