ENDA - Barney Frank backs down, HRC commits, time bought

In late breaking news on ENDA, Beck’s Cafe has just learned, via an email from MTPC cancelling a planned vigil at Barney Frank’s office regarding ENDA, that Barney Frank will not split ENDA and it is going to include both sexual orientation and gender identity as the original bill was designed. As many of our coffee swilling readers will remember from our post, “Transgender Rights Hailstorm“, Barney Frank had stated he was going to remove support for transgender rights from ENDA (see his news release on that topic by visiting his site HERE). But now, Barney Frank is going to support the full bill and is not going split ENDA and is going to be including both sexual orientation and gender identity.

Barney Frank’s change of heart is a great thing to see and Beck’s Cafe is brewing a fresh pot up for him!

Also, The Human Rights Campaign, which had issued this public response regarding the removal of the transgender piece of ENDA, has now signed onto a petition publicly stating that:

Our organizations support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act as introduced (H.R. 2015). Although we believe that the bill’s sponsor, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), and the House Democratic Leadership have a sincere desire to protect the LGBT community from discrimination, we believe the process and strategy that has been adopted is a mistake. That mistake is compounded by moving forward with a markup tomorrow.

You can read the HRC statement by visiting their site at this link HERE.

Finally, according to a National Center for Transgender Eqality (NCTE) ENDA email update statement, on 10/1/08 around 8PM EST by Mara Keisling and a phone update from NJ Congressman Russ Holt (as posted at Pam’s House Blend), it appears time has been bought on the side of proponents of ENDA to get congress and other allies on board. The meeting on the bill for Tuesday October 2nd, 2007, has been postponed until the end of October.

Talk about a fast changing bill! But everyone reading Beck’s Cafe’s coverage and who had a chance to call or write your congressmen and women all were a part of this small victory. So THANK YOU!! There is a much work to be done in the next few weeks!

(For past coverage of ENDA at Beck’s Cafe, please visit these stories, “Enda - Time to make some phone calls“, “Continued Coverage on ENDA - Sean Hannity, ADA and James Byrd“, “Continued Coverage on ENDA - Robyn’s Story“, “Petition Drive to Support a Complete ENDA“, “Transgender Rights Hail Storm“ )