Friday, December 12, 2008

It Is A Matter Of Human Rights

This was based on an email from the TGStateCoalition and from the blog “Queercents

Last Saturday, Rep. Barney Franks say at the Victory Fund and the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute dinner that he believes that a gender inclusive Hate Crime bill will pass Congress and President Obama will sign the bill in to law. However, he said that he does plan to introduce a non-gender inclusive ENDA bill this and he feels the bill has a good chance to pass. His reason for not introducing a gender inclusive bill is the same ol’ bull; “There is still a lot of ignorance about transgender in society.”

All of the polls that I have seen show that the majority of the voters are in favor of passing anti-discrimination legislation. The people get it! The trend in the polls is upward, the early polls (polls by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Garden State Equality and the HRC) showed that over seventy percent of the people were in favor of a gender Anti-Discrimination legislation. Last year the poll conducted by Empire State Pride Agenda found 78% of New Yorkers believed in protecting gender identity and expression. The people know that this is an issue of fairness, of allowing everyone an equal chance at employment and to make a living to support their families.

How can you help? You can help by contacting your representatives in Congress and tell them to support only a gender inclusive ENDA and Hate Crime bills.
Congressman Barney Frank
2252 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515

In addition, you can contact President-elect Obama and ask him to keep his campaign promise of only supporting a gender inclusive ENDA.
Obama for America
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680

To find your Congressional representative contact information, click here and your Senators contact information, click here.

Your help is important, especially if you are an ally because we need all the help that we can get. Please help spread the word.

4 comments:

  1. That doesn't jive with this article: http://www.dallasvoice.com/artman/publish/article_10242.php, which said this about Rep. Frank:

    Democratic U.S. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, in his remarks to a luncheon on Dec. 6, struck an optimistic note about the chances of passing fully inclusive versions of the hate crimes and ENDA bills, saying that much work has been done since last year to lay the necessary groundwork.

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  2. I guess that is the difference between being optimistic and pessimistic. Knowing what Rep. Franks did to us last year, I do not trust anything he says about including us.

    As Serena said, "'I think we can be idealists, but we still need to be pragmatic,' Frank said. He claimed, 'There is still a lot of ignorance about transgender in society.' Taken together, these two statements give Frank a lot of wiggle room to weasel out of pressing for transgender inclusion when a new version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is introduced in the next Congress."

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  3. We will get a transgender inclusive bill passed when Frank is no longer in office and HRC has no power to oppose us up front or in dirty back room deals.

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  4. The problem is that Franks will run for Ted Kennedy's senate seat once he retires.

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