The Gay Fringe – Anti-ENDA

 By Michael Lamb

This summer, we were deluded with visions of cracker box Americans causing a ruckus at congressional public hearings. They called Obama a Nazi, Satan, a Socialist and a Grandma killer. The most confusing aspect of these protests is that most of these couch excavations had no idea what they were protesting about and were misinformed by the various conservative fear monger groups who love to mentally taser their constituents’ minds with ridiculous projections, and “oh, and can you send us a check?”

ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act recently re-debuted in a congressional hearing that seeks to enact federal legislation to prevent discrimination against the LGBT community in the workplace. Now breathe! It’s not the ENDA the world. ENDA has been kicked around in Congress for the past 30 years since previous Congressional Representatives Ed Koch and Bela Abzug originally proposed it. In a nutshell, this civil rights act will prevent American businesses from firing an LGBT person because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Yet, despite how obviously we need a law like this on the books, there are some within our own ranks who have assumed a pedestal to bark out slurpy anti-ENDA comments without leaving one eye open to review the facts.

B.Daniel Blatt writes on GayPatriot.net in his piece, “Would ENDA lead to forced “outing?”

1-“Should this legislation pass, how would a liberal Administration enforce it, would the Holder Justice Department bring “disparate impact” lawsuits against corporations that don’t have the proper amount of homosexuals in their workforce.

2-Would a lower percentage of gay people in the workforce (than in the surrounding jurisdiction) be evidence of discrimination as some liberals believe a lower proportion of minorities (than in the population at large) is prima facie evidence of discrimination?

3-And how would an employer determine how many gays are in his employ (and a judge in his jurisdiction)?  Would people be required to identify their sexuality when they take a job?”

Scalpel!

1.     No Danny, there are no quotas for companies to fulfill as part of the ENDA legislation.

2.     Don’t be a prima dipstick Dan, ENDA contains no provisions that geographically define an area according to their gay population.

3.     ENDA does not require LGBT jobseekers to disclose their sexual orientation, so you can still hide if you like.

I have much respect for Gay conservatives even though it is not aligned with my thinking. The Log Cabin Republicans have represented LGBT conservatives for many years, but they don’t tell people that they can see Russia from their house.

ENDA is the LGBT community’s chance to finally attain fairness in the workplace. Let’s look at the facts and read the legislation before we start misleading our own in order to create an insecure, disparate identity.

-- The right wingnuts have just taken advantage of Blatt's blog post....