Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Let's Not Put the Cart Before the Horse, People

While driving home from work today I heard the news about the passage of the non-inclusive, certain-veto ENDA in the house. I couldn't help thinking "Is this really as far as we've come? All around us we hear daily shouts about the possibility of gay marriage, and yet I can still be fired for being queer?"

A couple months ago I asked why we focus so damn much on marriage equality when people can still be fired for being queer. Sure, we just had a month of drama over ENDA, but in the mainstream, whenever you hear about queer rights, all you hear about is marriage. Right-wingers ranting on about the sanctity of marriage. Brad Pitt saying that he wouldn't marry Angelina until everyone who wanted to could get married. Constant articles about this or that state that legalizing civil unions or outlawing marriage (Type "gay rights articles" into Google, and 6 of the first 10 results are about gay marriage. None mention employment). But we can still be legally fired for being queer! Why isn't there more attention focused on this, by the mainstream media certainly, but from our advocacy groups especially? I hope that I have not just realized what the answer is.

Are we pursing marriage equality more vehemently because it is an issue that is very important to upper class queers, while employment discrimination is more likely to affect poorer LGBTQ folk? The HRC's Corporate Equality Index rates companies on their "policies and practices pertinent to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors." Their 2008 report shows that 98% of the companies rated provide employment protection on the basis of sexual orientation (only 58% on the basis of gender identity).

Well, super. Sounds like employment discrimination (at least for GLB folk) is on the way out the door, right? Think again. The companies rated are the largest 200 privately owned firms, the top 200 law firms, and Fortune Magazine's list of the largest 1000 publicly-traded businesses. In other words, the most successful, corporate conglomerates who can afford to pay their laywers, investment-bankers CEOs, CFOs, etc plenty of money. No mention of how employment discrimination affects the queer people who work lower-paid jobs.

So what have we got here? A whole bunch of upper-class queer folk for whom employment discrimination isn't much of an issue, and who have money to contribute where they see fit. The queer folk who work at such corporations most likely have more money to donate to advocacy groups like the HRC, than those who work at smaller independently owned businesses and get paid minimum wage.

Understandably, these upper-class folk might not see employment discrimination as being a big issue, and thus might encourage our advocacy groups to focus less on employment, and more on marriage equality. Marriage, besides being something that these people might want because of commitment reasons, is an especially important issue to upper-class queers because of it's relation to money. Marriage rights include taxes, retirement accounts, social-security benefits, pensions, and home protection--issues vital to the upper-class, but less important to poorer queers that the more immediate prospect of being fired.

Are our advocacy groups bowing to the well-funded interests of upper-class queers, and thus emphasizing the need for marriage equality over the more basic need for employment rights? I would like to think not; however, let's not forget that a non-profit must always be thinking about how it's going to get the money to fund it's next initiative. If their wealthy donors are putting pressure on them to lobby for marriage equality, then it is very much in the interest of the advocacy groups to do so, despite more pressing and basic problems.

So please, if you happen to be one of those wealthy queers, be sure to emphasize to the groups you fund how important it is that they stick up for the poorest and most discriminated against in our community. Just as our GLB folk must speak out for the protection of our trans folk, our upper-class people MUST fight for the protection of those less well-off than they. As they say, money is power. And it is absolutely incumbent upon those with power to be responsible for the way they use it.

Very Good Summary of Mixed ENDA Feelings

I very much enjoyed this article by Matt Foreman at The Bilerico Project about the passage of the non-inclusive ENDA by the House today. I'm copying it below for those of you who are to lazy to follow a link (I certainly am sometimes). I hope that's okay with all those copyright folk. Eep.


"We are frustrated, but it will not stop us"
By: Matt Foreman at The Bilerico Project


"Following six weeks of rancorous debate, the House of Representatives voted today on a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that does not include protections on the basis of gender identity. It passed by a vote of 235 to 184.

"When confronted with the possibility of Congress moving forward with a bill that stripped out protections for transgender people, the activist and grassroots backbone of our movement responded almost instantaneously in unprecedented numbers with conviction, passion and political savvy. We are frustrated with this course of action, but it will not stop us from pressing forward toward our ultimate goal: nondiscrimination protections for everyone in our community.

"When congressional leadership announced late last month that it planned to advance a version of ENDA that only contained protections on the basis of sexual orientation to the House floor, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Inc., took a leading role in moving to block that strategy and move forward on the fully inclusive bill. A coalition called United ENDA was created with more than 360 national, state and local organizations joining the struggle.

"We are deeply disappointed that House leadership decided to ignore the position of a vast majority of LGBT organizations, ignore the legal assessment that this bill may not even provide adequate protections for gays, lesbians and bisexuals, and ignore the fact that this vote might make it more difficult to persuade members of Congress to support a fully inclusive bill in the future. We are also disappointed that House leadership forced many members of its own caucus to choose between voting for a bill not supported by most in the LGBT community, or voting against a civil rights bill. This entire process has been painful, divisive and unnecessary. And worst of all, we went through all of this on behalf of a bill that the president has already said he would veto.

"The past six weeks have been among the most difficult and challenging our community has ever faced. When confronted with the possibility of Congress moving forward on a bill that stripped out protections for transgender people, the activist and grassroots backbone of our movement responded almost instantaneously in unprecedented numbers with conviction, passion and political savvy. United ENDA — a broad coalition of more than 360 national, statewide and local LGBT organizations, community centers and health clinics — fueled the effort. All of this has shaken the long-established order to its core and things will never be the same. While we are frustrated with the course of action that has been taken so far, we will not stop pressing forward toward our ultimate goal: nondiscrimination protections for everyone in our community.

"We are relieved this episode is behind us, and starting right now we are going to pick up where we were six weeks ago — namely, working to pass into law in 2009 the ENDA our entire community wants and deserves.

"We also applaud our champions in Congress who courageously fought in committee, in their caucus and on the floor to guarantee protections for all LGBT individuals. Many members of Congress took significant risks to buck their leadership and speak out in favor of an inclusive bill. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) fought to bring an amendment to the floor to add gender identity protections. Reps. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) voted against the non-inclusive bill in the House Education and Labor Committee. Seven members voted against the bill on the floor today on the principle that the bill should have provided protections on the basis of gender identity: Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Rush Holt (D-N.J.), Michael Michaud (D-Maine), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) and Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). The LGBT community will be forever grateful for their passionate support."

Monday, November 5, 2007

We're Still Alive!

We're just swamped!

The other day I was like, oh dear, no one's written anything for quite some time. So I thought I should at least explain that we're not all dead and that we are, indeed, intending to come back to ye olde blogg.

I have a half-written post about the word "queer" from forever ago that I will be cleaning up and posting one of these days. And I know that C Kate has some awesomeness about the infantilization of men in the works too.