News

Onward to the House for ENDA

Boehner pressured to allow vote after bipartisan Senate passage

Published

12 years ago

November 12, 2013

All eyes will be on Speaker John Boehner as advocates push for a House vote on ENDA. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Supporters of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act are hoping to capitalize on the momentum from last week’s historic bipartisan Senate victory as they pursue a vote on the bill in the U.S. House.

Ten Senate Republicans voted for ENDA, which would prohibit most employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Their support gave the bill more bipartisan support than “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, which had just eight GOP votes, and more than any other pro-LGBT bill that has come to a vote in the Senate.

Liz Mair, a Republican political strategist who favors LGBT inclusion in the party, said the support that ENDA received in the Senate from Republicans demonstrates the party isn’t as opposed to LGBT rights as some observers might think.

“The fact that ENDA garnered 10 Republican votes in the Senate — and from a Republican caucus that is significantly less moderate than certain predecessor versions now that it lacks Scott Brown, Olympia Snowe, Judd Gregg and the like — is a reminder that the GOP is much more attuned to gay rights issues and much more in line with mainstream American attitudes on those issues than one would think from the image of the GOP that certain very conservative party leaders and the media tend to present,” Mair said.

The two Republican original co-sponsors — Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) — were joined in support by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

Of those 10, the votes from McCain and Flake are particularly noteworthy because they represent a “red” state that President Obama lost in both 2008 and 2012. In addition, both senators expressed misgivings about ENDA before they ultimately voted for the bill.

Gregory Angelo, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, nonetheless said he wasn’t surprised by their support for the bill in the end.

“I know that both senators had expressed some hesitancy before casting their votes, but Flake is someone who voted for ENDA in 2007 when he was a member of the House, and Sen. McCain had even indicated that he would be open to supporting ENDA when he was running for president in 2008 — as part of, I believe, a questionnaire or interview he did with the Blade no less,” Angelo said.

A Senate source familiar with ENDA said McCain was able to support the bill after the adoption of the Portman-Ayotte amendment, which would prohibit federal, state and local governments from retaliating against institutions that invoke the religious exemption in the bill to discriminate against LGBT employees.

For Flake, who earlier told the Washington Blade he’d vote against ENDA because of the transgender protections in the bill, the Senate source said his support was solidified after he received assurances that businesses would receive guidance on the prohibition of gender identity discrimination.

Also significant on the Republican position on ENDA was the fact that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to Senate Republican aides familiar with the bill, didn’t whip the vote on the legislation and instead allowed members of his caucus to vote their conscience.

Angelo was among those who saw no evidence of Republican leadership instructing members to vote against ENDA.

“The fact that you had almost one-in-four members of the GOP caucus in the Senate vote in favor shows that membership was allowed to take a vote of conscience on this issue,” Angelo said.

Will the House vote on ENDA?

Now that the Senate has wrapped up its consideration of ENDA, attention has turned to passing the bill in the House, where Republican support will be necessary, first, to bring the bill to the floor and, second, to find 218 votes for the bill in the Republican majority chamber.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has indicated his opposition to the bill out of concern it would lead to “frivolous lawsuits” and a spokesperson for House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was quoted in The Huffington Post as saying the bill “is currently not scheduled in the House.”

Nonetheless, Democrats ranging from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to gay Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), ENDA’s chief sponsor in the House, insist that the House has enough votes for passage should it come to the floor.

Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), told the Blade his boss is among those who believe ENDA has sufficient support in the House for passage.

“Leader Pelosi has made it clear that there is sufficient support in the House to pass ENDA now,” Hammill said. “Instead of scheduling a vote on this measure, House Republicans are planning to vote for the 46th time to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act. There is only one man standing in the way of the expansion of workplace protections for millions of LGBT Americans. His name is John Boehner.”

ENDA has 196 House sponsors. That’s just 22 votes short of the necessary votes to pass the legislation on the House floor.

While the bill could technically come up at any time during the 13 months that remain in the current Congress, Polis said the legislation should come up sooner rather than later because, as Election Day approaches, members of the House will leave to campaign in their districts. It would be the first time that ENDA has come to the House floor since 2007, and the first time ever the chamber would consider a version of the bill that included transgender protections.

ENDA supporters claimed another Republican as their own last week when former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who served as spokesperson for former President George W. Bush, penned an op-ed in Politico urging the House to pass the bill.

“Allowing people to be successful in their workplaces is an essential piece of individual opportunity and liberty,” Fleischer said. “Working for a living is one of America’s freedoms. It’s a virtue to be encouraged — and supporting it is important to the future of the Republican Party.”

But not all LGBT advocates agree that sufficient votes exist to pass ENDA in the House. Some Republican supporters of the legislation stopped short of saying ENDA already has sufficient support to pass on the floor.

Jeff Cook-McCormac, senior adviser to the pro-LGBT Republican group American Unity Fund, said more work is needed when asked if ENDA is ready to move to the House floor.

“We’re encouraged by the momentum, working to identify and demonstrate majority support and committed to engaging legislators in the thoughtful and respectful conversations necessary to get there as quickly as possible,” Cook-McCormac said.

Mair said ENDA will be “a more uphill battle in the House” not only because of conservative worries over the bill’s content, but also out of fear of supporting anything seen as part of Obama’s agenda. Still, she wouldn’t rule out a surprise.

“Even back in 2007, ENDA garnered a noteworthy amount of GOP support in the House, including from some rather conservative members,” Mair said. “Thirty-five Republicans voted for ENDA then, including John Campbell, Jeff Flake, Thaddeus McCotter and Paul Ryan. So it will be interesting to see how it plays out this time around.”

For Cook-McCormac, the next priority is to build the number of Republican co-sponsors for ENDA. There are currently five: Reps. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.), Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Jon Runyan (R-N.J.).

Dent told the Washington Post that Boehner “should allow a vote on this bill” because the American public believes the workplace should be free of discrimination.

Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement to the Blade that she also hopes Republican leadership will bring ENDA to the floor for a vote, but chose her words carefully about its prospects.

“The passage of ENDA by the Senate is a great first step toward making this bill law,” Ros-Lehitnen said. “I urge my colleagues in the House to sign on to the companion bill and hope House leadership will bring it up for a vote. I believe if it is brought to a vote, it has the opportunity to pass.”

Renee Gamela, a Hanna spokeswoman, said ENDA is good for business.

“Rep. Hanna would like ENDA to receive a vote in the House when it is clear that there are sufficient votes for passage,” Gamela said. “He intends to speak directly with his colleagues about why, as a small business owner, he believes supporting the legislation is good for economic competitiveness, individual liberty and our party.”

As articulated by Pelosi, one approach seen as a pathway for passage of ENDA in the House would be similar to what happened with reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Amid public pressure, the House in February passed a bill with protections for LGBT victims of domestic violence after the Republican version of the bill without the provisions failed on the floor.

Log Cabin’s Angelo said whether a vote on ENDA will take place in the House “comes down to pressure” both from Republicans in the House who support it and advocates on the outside who want to see it passed.

“I think if you had a similar push that happened with the Violence Against Women Act, where you had a tremendous surge among grassroots, and you also had GOP members of Congress urging leadership to bring this up for a vote, you got there,” Angelo said. “But it’s going to take considerable pressure. I’m not a Pollyanna when it comes to prospects in the House, but I am cautiously optimistic.”

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Philippines

Philippines Supreme Court rules same-sex couples can co-own property

Advocacy group celebrated landmark decision

Published

6 hours ago

February 10, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

(Bigstock photo)

The Philippines Supreme Court in a landmark ruling said same-sex couples can co-own property under the country’s Family Code.

The Philippine News Agency on Tuesday notes the court issued its ruling in the case of two women who bought a house in Quezon City, a suburb of Manila, the Filipino capital, before they broke up.

The two women, according to the Philippine News Agency, “agreed to sell the property” after they ended their relationship, “and the registered owner — the respondent — signed a document acknowledging that the other partner paid for half of the purchase and renovations.” The Philippine News Agency notes “the registered owner” later “refused to sell the property and withdrew her earlier acknowledgment of co-ownership, prompting the other partner to file a complaint.”

A Regional Trial Court and the Philippines Court of Appeals ruled against the plaintiff.

The Supreme Court in a 14-page ruling it issued on Feb. 5 overturned the decisions. The Supreme Court published its decision on Tuesday.

“Considering that there is co-ownership between petitioner and respondent, then each co-owner may demand at any time the partition of the thing owned in common, insofar as her share is concerned,” said the Supreme Court in its ruling, according to the Philippine News Agency. “Having rightful interest over the subject property, petitioner has the right to demand the division of the subject property.”

The predominantly Catholic country’s Family Code defines marriage as “a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman entered into in accordance with law for the establishment of conjugal and family life.” It also states in Article 148 that “in cases of cohabitation” outside of marriage, “only the properties acquired by both of the parties through their actual joint contribution of money, property, or industry shall be owned by them in common in proportion to their respective contributions.”

“In the absence of proof to the contrary, their contributions and corresponding shares are presumed to be equal,” it reads.

The BBC reported the Supreme Court ruling states this provision “applies to all forms of co-habitation,” regardless of the couple’s gender. A Supreme Court press release indicates the decision notes lawmakers and the Filipino government “must address same-sex couples’ rights, as courts alone cannot resolve all related policy concerns.”

“This court does not have the monopoly to assure the freedom and rights of homosexual couples,” it reads. “With the political, moral, and cultural questions that surround the issue concerning the rights of same-sex couples, political departments, especially the Congress must be involved to quest for solutions, which balance interests while maintaining fealty to fundamental freedoms.”

LGBT Pilipinas, a Filipino advocacy group, welcomed the ruling.

“This ruling marks a monumental step forward in the legal recognition of LGBTQ+ families and relationships in the country,” it said in a statement.

LGBT Pilipinas added the ruling “lays a crucial legal foundation for broader recognition of same-sex relationships and strengthens the push for comprehensive anti-discrimination protections.”

“This is a win not only for the LGBTQ+ community, but for fairness and justice in Philippine society as a whole,” said the group.

Florida

Disney’s Gay Days ‘has not been canceled’ despite political challenges

GayDays is moving forward with its planned LGBTQ meet-up

Published

7 hours ago

February 10, 2026

Joe Reberkenny

(Photo by Ben Gingell/Bigstock)

Gay Days in Orlando is preparing for its 2026 gathering though organizers have yet to release full details.

Concerns emerged about the status of the annual meetup of LGBTQ people at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., after social media posts and multiple news outlets reported the event would not take place this year.

In response to inquiries from the Blade, Josh Duke, co-owner of Gay Days, clarified that an update would come this week.

“At this time, I’d like to clarify that Gay Days Orlando has not been canceled,” an email to the Blade said. “We are currently finalizing details regarding our plans for 2026 and will be making an official announcement later this week.”

Earlier this week, Gay Days posted about a pause in their plans for the annual meeting, which quickly gained traction online.

In an official statement on social media, Gay Days organizers cited several factors behind what had initially appeared to be a cancellation of their 2026 event.

“Changes to our host hotel agreement, the loss of key sponsorship support, and broader challenges currently impacting LGBTQIA+ events nationwide made it impossible to deliver the experience our community deserves,” organizers wrote. However, the statement added, “This is a pause — not an ending.”

In a longer message shared with supporters, organizers elaborated on that now-reversed decision.

“Gay Days Family — it is with very heavy hearts that we share Gay Days 2026 will not take place this year. This was an incredibly difficult decision and one that was only made after every possible option was explored.

“Gay Days has always been more than an event — it is community, family, and a place where so many memories are made. While this pause is painful, it also gives us the opportunity to step back, listen, and begin shaping a stronger and reimagined GayDays for the future. Thank you for your continued love, patience, and support. This is not goodbye — it’s a reset, and we look forward to creating the future of GayDays together.”

GayDays, which began in 1991, encourages queer Disney fans to visit the Orlando theme park while wearing red shirts to identify one another. Originally focused on gay men reclaiming the childhood joy often denied due to homophobia, the event has expanded over the years to include LGBTQ+ families on summer vacations and queer couples honeymooning in the Magic Kingdom.

Disney made history in 2019 by holding its first-ever official Pride event at its European park, Disneyland Paris. In 2023, Disneyland California hosted the first U.S. official Pride event.

Concerns about the potential cancellation had arisen amid broader challenges affecting LGBTQ events nationwide. These include changes in hotel agreements, sponsorship support, and Florida’s increasingly restrictive anti-LGBTQ policies under Gov. Ron DeSantis. Florida currently has an equality score of -3.00 out of 49 from the Movement Advancement Project, which evaluates states based on policies affecting relationship and parental recognition, nondiscrimination, religious exemptions, LGBTQ youth, healthcare, criminal justice, and transgender identity documentation.

Recent legislation in Florida has included prohibitions on hormone replacement therapy for transgender minors, restrictions on adult access to treatment, bans on drag performances for those under 18, bathroom bans for transgender people in state buildings, and expansion of the Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly called the “Don’t Say Gay” law. These measures limit public school instruction or discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity.

Gay Days Anaheim is scheduled to take place at Disneyland Resort in September.

Disney has also maintained a focus on Pride, reporting in 2022 that proceeds from Pride merchandise benefited numerous LGBTQ organizations, including GLSEN, PFLAG, The Trevor Project, Zebra Coalition, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the LGBT Center Orange County, the San Francisco LGBT Center, and the Ali Forney Center. Pride merchandise sold internationally supports local LGBTQ organizations in those regions.

More details about this event are expected to be released on Friday.

New York

Pride flag removed from Stonewall Monument as Trump targets LGBTQ landmarks

The new NPS policy targets Pride flags amid consistent efforts from the Trump administration to minimize LGBTQ history.

Published

7 hours ago

February 10, 2026

Joe Reberkenny

(Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

A rainbow Pride flag flying at the Stonewall National Monument in New York was removed at the direction of Trump administration officials at the National Park Service, according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke to the Blade on condition of anonymity.

The source said the move had been in the works for weeks and is part of ongoing efforts by the Trump-Vance administration to erase LGBTQ identity from federally controlled landmarks.

In response to the Blade’s request for information about the new flag policy, the National Park Service provided the following statement:

“Current Department of the Interior policy provides that the National Park Service may only fly the U.S. flag, Department of the Interior flags, and the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action flag on flagpoles and public display points. The policy allows limited exceptions, permitting non-agency flags when they serve an official purpose. These include historical context or reenactments, current military branch flags, flags of federally recognized tribal nations affiliated with a park, flags at sites co-managed with other federal, state, or municipal partners, flags required for international park designations, and flags displayed under agreements with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for Naturalization ceremonies.”

The statement also included official guidance on the display of non-agency flags issued by Trump-appointed National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron.

The Blade reached out to other organizations to confirm the status of the Pride flag last week, including the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the National Parks Conservation Association. None were able to provide details about whether the flag was still flying at that time but it has since been removed.

This action aligns with other moves targeting and erasing LGBTQ history. In September, the Blade reported that three organizations originally slated to receive more than $1.25 million from the National Park Service’s Underrepresented Communities Grant Program would no longer receive funding: In Washington, D.C., the Preservation League had been awarded $75,000 to document LGBTQ+ historic resources. In Providence, R.I., the Preservation Society was slated for $74,692 to conduct an LGBTQ+ survey and prepare a National Register nomination. And in New York, the Fund for the City of New York, Inc., had been awarded $32,000 to nominate the residence of Bayard Rustin — the iconic civil rights and LGBTQ activist — as a National Historic Landmark.