Politics
AFL-CIO pledges to ‘redouble’ efforts to pass ENDA
Labor sec’y commends labor group for previous work on anti-bias LGBT legislation
![Thomas Perez, Civil Rights Division, Justice Department, gay news, Washington Blade](https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2013/03/Thomas_Perez_thumb_c_Washington_Blade_by_Michael_Key.jpg)
![Labor Thomas Perez has commended the AFL-CIO for supporting ENDA (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key).](https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2011/09/Thomas_Perez_insert_c_Michael_Key.jpg)
Labor SecretaryĀ Thomas Perez has commended the AFL-CIO for supporting ENDA. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key).
The nation’s largest federation of labor unions on Wednesday passed a resolution pledging to “redouble” its efforts to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
The AFL-CIO approved the measure, Resolution 37, to reaffirm its support for ENDA at its constitutional convention this week in Los Angeles.
“The AFL-CIO will redouble our support for the passage of ENDA and continue this work until every worker ā gay or straight, transgender or not ā is treated with dignity and respect on the job,” the resolution states. “We urge all national and international unions to join in the effort to pass ENDA and to use their influence to sway those members of Congress who will be instrumental in the billās passage.”
The resolution was initiated by the American Federation of Teachers, an organized headed by Randi Weingarten, a lesbian and Democratic activist.
In a statement after the resolution was approved, Weingarten said recent victories for marriage equality at the ballot and the Supreme Court are generating “momentum on our side for ENDA to become the law of the land.”
“The fear of being discriminated against based on sexual orientation deters people from stepping up to serve our communities and reach for the stars,” Weingarten said. “We need to recommit ourselves to knocking down barriers for working people and stand up for equal treatment under our laws.”
The AFL-CIO was previously on the record in support of ENDA. According to the Americans for Workplace Opportunities campaign, the labor organization had signed a letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights in favor of the legislation. The resolution itself says AFL-CIO had a adopted a similar measure in 2009.
But the latest resolution emphasizes that a stronger voice is needed at this time to pass ENDA as the legislation nears a vote.
“The momentum of marriage equality, and the changing tide of public opinion, clears the way for the swift passage of ENDA,” the resolution states.
The resolution touts without federal law, union contracts are the only thing in place prohibiting discrimination against LGBT workers in states lacking workplace protections.
“Without ENDA, the only protection many LGBT workers have is their union contracts,” the resolution states. “Union workers can be fired only with just cause and often have access to grievance procedures and arbitration. Additionally, many union contracts do what the law does not: protect workers against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The manner in which the AFL-CIO passed the resolution or the vote by which it succeeded wasn’t immediately known. AFL-CIO didn’t immediately respond to a request to answer questions about the resolution.
The labor organization passes the resolution in the aftermath of a speech from Labor Secretary Thomas Perez on Tuesday to the AFL-CIO in which he noted members have previously worked in support of the ENDA among other initiatives.
Perez said the AFL-CIO has “worked as hard as anyone” and was there “to ensure pay equity for women and work together to pass ENDA so our LGBT brothers and sisters can’t be fired for who they are.”
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, praised the AFL-CIO for passing the resolution and said it will help move ENDA through both chambers of Congress.
“In the year 2013, nobody should be making excuses for why we canāt launch a full campaign to pass ENDA through both chambers of Congress, not just quitting after one chamber,” Almeida said. “The labor movement does not make excuses, and neither should LGBT organizations.”
Matt McTighe, campaign manager for Americans for Workplace Opportunity, also said he welcomes the endorsement from AFL-CIO because it demonstrates ENDA has strong support.
“The AFL-CIO’s strong endorsement of workplace protections is a major and welcome development in the fight to protect American workers from discrimination,”Ā McTighe said. “It’s rare to see an issue where the leading voices in the labor movement and the business community are so united, but most Americans fundamentally agree that employees should be judged on job performance, nothing more, nothing less.
The AFL-CIO approves the resolution just as lawmakers return from August recess and LGBT advocates anticipate on Senate floor on ENDA sometime this fall.
Almeida said he thinks passage of the resolution will help persuade the three undecided Senate Democrats on ENDA ā Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) ā to vote in favor of the bill because of their support for labor.
For example, Almeida said Manchin would be more inclined to vote for ENDA because West Virginia has many labor workers in the mining industry.
“The United Mine Workers of the AFL-CIO is a very important voice for fairness in West Virginia, and we hope that Senator Manchin will hear that call from our labor movement friends who want to give all American workers a fair shot at a job no matter who they are or who they love,” Almeida said.
Politics
HRC slams White House over position opposing gender affirming surgeries for minors
āBiden administration is flat wrong on thisā
![](https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2022/11/Kelley_Robinson_insert_14_c_Washington_Blade_by_Michael_Key.jpg)
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson issued a strong rebuke on Tuesday of the Biden-Harris administration’s position opposing gender affirming surgeries for minors.
The New York Times reported on June 28 that the White House, which broadly supports making medical interventions available for transgender youth, had expressed opposition to surgeries for patients under 18, having previously declined to take a specific position on the question.
āHealth care decisions for young people belong between a patient, their family, and their health care provider. Trans youth are no exception,” Robinson responded.
āThe Biden administration is flat wrong on this. Itās wrong on the science and wrong on the substance. Itās also inconsistent with other steps the administration has taken to support transgender youth. The Biden administration, and every elected official, need to leave these decisions to families, doctors and patientsāwhere they belong,” she added. “Although transgender young people make up an extremely small percentage of youth in this country, the care they receive is based on decades of clinical research and is backed by every major medical association in the U.S. representing over 1.3 million doctors.”
Robinson said the “administration has committed to fight any ban on healthcare for transgender youth and must continue this without hesitationāthe entire community is watching.”
āNo parent should ever be put in the position where they and their doctor agree on one course of action, supported by the overwhelming majority of medical experts, but the government forbids it,ā she added.
HRC is a prominent backer of Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, having pledged $15 million to support efforts in six battleground states. The organization has a strong relationship with the White House, with the president and first lady headlining last year’s National Dinner.
A White House spokesperson declined to respond to Robinson’s statement.
Campaign for Southern Equality President Allison Scott also issued a statement.
āThis is a cowardly statement from an administration that promised to support transgender people. It is a troubling concession to the right-wing assault on transgender Americans, falling for their false narratives about surgical care and betraying a commitment to equality and trust in the medical community,ā said Scott.
āLetās be very, very clear: Government has no business inserting itself into private medical decisions that should be exclusively between patients, their providers, and the patientsā parent or guardian,” Scott added.
“It is dangerous to begin endorsing categorical bans or limits on healthcare, and there is no justification for restricting transgender youthās access to the very same care that many cisgender youth receive every year ā thatās literally the definition of discrimination,” Scott concluded. “We demand the Biden administration retract this thoughtless statement and work to undo its damage.ā
Congress
Members of Congress introduce resolution to condemn Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act
U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Joyce Beatty spearheaded condemnation
![](https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2023/06/20210621_Mark_Takano_Equality_PAC_Pride_Gala_at_Union_Station_insert_c_Washington_Blade_by_Michael_Key.jpg)
More than 20 members of Congress on Thursday introduced a resolution that condemns Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Gay California Congressman Mark Takano and U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) spearheaded the resolution that U.S. Reps. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), RaĆŗl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Mark Pocan (D-Wash.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill), Linda SĆ”nchez (D-Calif.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) co-sponsored.
“The House of Representatives condemns the government of Ugandaās criminalization and draconian punishments regarding consensual same-sex sexual conduct and so-called ā’promotion of homosexuality,ā” reads the resolution.
The resolution, among other things, also calls upon the Ugandan government to repeal the law.
āIt is difficult to overstate the gross inhumanity of Ugandaās Anti-Homosexuality Act,ā said Takano in a press release.
President Yoweri Museveni in May 2023 signed the law, which contains a death penalty provision for āaggravated homosexuality.ā
The U.S. subsequently imposed visa restrictions on Ugandan officials and removed the country from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free with the U.S. The World Bank Group also announced the suspension of new loans to Uganda.
The Ugandan Constitutional Court in April refused to ānullify the Anti-Homosexuality Act in its totality.ā A group of Ugandan LGBTQ activists appealed the ruling.
āInstead of focusing on rooting out corruption or ending extrajudicial killings, the Ugandan Parliament, president, and Constitutional Court have chosen to mark LGBTQ+ Ugandans as less than human,” said Takano. “Congress must not be silent in the face of such systematic, state-sponsored discrimination.”
“To all those LGBTQ+ people and your allies in Uganda ā we see you,” added the California Democrat. “We and the Biden administration will not allow this terrible violation of basic dignity to go unchallenged.ā
Politics
LGBTQ issues absent from Trump-Biden debate
Advocacy groups hoped candidates would address queer topics
![](https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2024/06/20240627_Donald_Trump_and_Joe_Biden_at_CNN_Presidential_Debate_in_Atlanta_screen_capture_insert_via_CNN.jpg)
At their televised debate in Atlanta on June 27, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump traded barbs on issues from abortion and election integrity to immigration and foreign policy. The 81 and 78-year-old candidates even argued over who is a better golfer.
Absent from the discussion, however, were matters of LGBTQ rights that have animated national politics in this election cycle with the presumptive Republican nominee promising to weaponize the federal government against queer and trans Americans as the president pledges to build on his record of expanding their freedoms and protections.
CNN hosted Thursday’s debate, with the network’s anchors Dana Bash and Jake Tapper moderating. ABC News will run the second debate scheduled for September 10.
The president’s performance was widely criticized as halting and shaky, with White House reporter Peter Baker of The New York Times writing that Democratic Party leaders are calling for him to be replaced at the top of the ticket.
Also setting the tone early into the program was Trump’s repetition of the lie that Democrats are so “radical” on matters of abortion that they “will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth.”
Biden, meanwhile, laid the blame at his opponent’s feet for appointing three U.S. Supreme Court justices during his term in office who overturned Roe v. Wade’s 51-year-old constitutional protections for abortion.
He also referenced the fallout from that ruling and the extreme restrictions passed by conservative legislators in its wake, arguing that Trump would not veto a federal abortion ban if Republican majorities in Congress were to pass one.
Trump also repeated falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election.
“Will you pledge tonight that once all legal challenges have been exhausted, that you will accept the results of this election,” Bash asked him, “regardless of who wins, and you will say right now that political violence in any form is unacceptable?”
The Republican frontrunner first responded by denying he was responsible for his supporters’ violent ransacking of the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 2021.
After the CNN anchor pressed him twice to answer the first part of her question, Trump said, “if it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely” but “the fraud and everything else was ridiculous.”
“You appealed and appealed to courts all across the country,” Biden responded. “Not one single court in America said any of your claims had any merit, state or local, none. But you continue to provoke this lie about somehow, there’s all this misrepresentation, all this stealing ā there is no evidence of that at all.”
The president continued, “And I tell you what, I doubt whether you’ll accept it, because you’re such a whiner.”
Advocacy groups hoped the debate would address LGBTQ issues
Leading up to the debate, advocacy groups urged the candidates to defend their records on and policy proposals concerning LGBTQ rights, with some arguing the discussion would advantage President Joe Biden’s campaign, as reported by The Hill’s Brooke Migdon.
As the community celebrated Pride this month, the Biden-Harris 2024 team made significant investments in paid media and the Out for Biden national organizing effort to court LGBTQ voters, who are expected to comprise a larger share of the electorate than ever before.
āThis will be an enormous slight to our community if LGBTQ questions are not asked during this debate,ā GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis said. āOur community is deeply affected by where these candidates stand.āĀ
āThe safety and freedom of LGBTQ people depends on your engagement with the candidates and ability to inform voters about their records and proposals,ā she said.
Annise Parker, the outgoing president and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, said āI certainly hope that the moderators bring up the LGBTQ community and LGBTQ issues, because there is a stark contrast between the two candidates.”
āI hope we see a substantive conversation on the records of these two men for the fight for a more equal society,ā said Brandon Wolf, national press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign.
āA vast majority of people in this country support an America that treats people with dignity and respect; they support an America that prevents people from experiencing discrimination and harm simply because of who they are,ā he said.
āThat is where the American people largely are, and I hope we get an opportunity on that stage to see the contrast between these two candidates.āĀ
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