Comments on: Does Obama see ENDA as part of jobs issue? http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/10/28/does-obama-see-enda-as-part-of-jobs-issue/ the gay community's news source Thu, 23 May 2013 20:58:02 +0000 hourly 1 By: Esra http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/10/28/does-obama-see-enda-as-part-of-jobs-issue/#comment-49412 Esra Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:44:35 +0000 http://www.washingtonblade.com/?p=30915#comment-49412 Helen, with all due respect to your frnied, as a retired federal employee, it was the Cliinton administration which pushed agencies to initiate policies respecting and protecting lgbt (yes, t too) people and adding lgbt representatives to HR advisory boards. The agency I worked for followed with their policy protecting lgbt people (being a supervisor during those years). They specifically asked for a trans-representative for the agency board.Unfortunately policies don’t change people, and despite all the best intentions, only a few places fully accepted transpeople. And despite all those policies, they weren’t regulations to really protect lgbt people against covert discrimination, meaning transfer, reassignment, even demotion, etc., so while you kept your employment, it wasn’t necessarily in the same place or in the same job. And it’s why most stayed in the proverbial closet.

]]> By: El Dorado http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/10/28/does-obama-see-enda-as-part-of-jobs-issue/#comment-37825 El Dorado Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:56:57 +0000 http://www.washingtonblade.com/?p=30915#comment-37825 ENDA isn’t a priority and lacks momentum not only because of the inertia of Obama and Congress but the gay community itself. We could have made ENDA the priority after Hate Crimes became law but the community chose to make ending the ban in the military a greater priority than ENDA even though most people in the community don’t work for the US military. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid failed us by putting off a vote on ENDA first for health care reform and then due to endless other excuses such as two gay bills could not be considered at once. ENDA should have been the item to be voted on over ending the ban in the military.

Obama addressed ending the ban in his Presidential address but no mention was made of ENDA! And DOMA continues to take the limelight over ENDA in the media and in most debates. Until you make ENDA the top priority and stop trying to do a million things at once it isn’t going anywhere!

Further, gay groups like HRC probably don’t have any interest in seeing ENDA become law because once it is how much more use would an organization like that be other than extending ENDA to including Housing, Publc Accommodations and Services?

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