UPDATE, 2:53PM: In a vote of 27-21, the HELP committee has passed a non-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act. A full floor vote is next. Only four Democrats voted against this non-inclusive bill: Reps. Yvette Clark, Loretta Sanchez, Rush Holt and Dennis Kucinich. I don't know what Sestak's rationale for voting for a non-inclusive bill is yet. It must be tough for him with the speaker and other House Dem leaders pushing for this bill. However, a non-inclusive bill does not do anything to address the core problems inherent to LGBT workplace discrimination. I'll provide more of an update on next steps when it becomes clear what they are

Dear Congressman,

A lot of us here in Philadelphia vocally supported you last fall. You were a hero on this and other local blogs, and local grassroots groups like Philly for Change and Liberty City endorsed you, and helped your campaign. That's why it's exciting to me that your vote on the markup of a bill today could make a big difference.

Today, your committee (the House Education and Labor committee) will meet at 10 AM and vote to mark up a bill called ENDA to extend employment rights to lesbians and gays. Currently there is no federal law protecting non-heterosexuals from being fired for having sex, in non-working hours, with someone else of the same sex.

Passage of this bill would be a big step forward in establishing, under law, a set of rights and a class of protection for gays and lesbians. However, some members of the queer community have never been able to get or keep jobs, not because of who they sleep with, but because of who they are.

That's right, I am talking about nellies, sissies, butches, genderqueer, and transgender people. Some of these folks identify as a different gender than the sex they were born with, and some identify fully as the sex they were born with--they're just more feminine or masculine than the norm.

These are the people who face the most discrimination in the workplace, and yet some of your colleagues want to remove protections from ENDA that would designate gender identity and gender presentation as protected classes under the law.

Rep. Barney Frank, the architect behind the removal of gender identity and gender presentation, and the first out gay congressman defends himself and his actions by saying:

"You protect people when you can...The notion you don't do anything until you do everything is self-defeating."

Who’s being self-defeating? Over 300 LGBT groups nationally agree with me, including Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club here in Philadelphia. We simply don't want nondiscrimination protection unless it includes all of us.

So, today, I hope you insist on an ENDA bill that includes gender identity.

I know there are forces in leadership who don't want this, but we, the LGBT people do. We want this because it is the right thing to do, and we want this because it is the effective thing to do: passage of a bill that does not address gender identity does not really address the biggest source of employment non-discrimination problems that occur.

And, some of us have been working to support a bill at the state level to pass employment non-discrimination (You know how important state employment laws are--in many ways they trump federal ones in terms of day-to-day rights). We're very worried that a non-inclusive federal bill will send a message to the state legislature that a non-inclusive bill is ok here too.

Don’t let Washington-based political expediency interfere with what's good, what's right, and what's needed in my community.

Yours truly,
Ray Murphy