News
LGBT workers caught in standoff as ENDA blocked
Boehner won’t bring up bill; White House continues to withhold executive order
House Speaker John Boehner opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
After Senate passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, progress toward protecting LGBT workers has hit a wall amid an apparent standoff between the U.S. House and the White House.
On the one hand, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said he sees “no need or no basis” for ENDA, which would bar most employers from discriminating against LGBT workers. On the other, the White House insists the House of Representatives must take action and is continuing to withhold an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from engaging in anti-LGBT discrimination.
Boehner made the comments in opposition to ENDA, articulating a view he previously expressed through a spokesperson, when asked by the Washington Blade last week whether he would allow a vote on the legislation despite his own misgivings about the bill.
“I think this legislation that I’ve dealt with as chairman of the Education & The Workforce Committee long before I was back in the leadership is unnecessary and would provide a basis for frivolous lawsuits,” Boehner said. “People are already protected in the workplace. I’m opposed to continuing this.”
LGBT advocates immediately pounced on Boehner’s remarks, saying there’s no basis to believe the bill would lead to “frivolous lawsuits,” citing a recent study by Government Accountability Office finding that the enactment of similar state laws have resulted in “relatively few employment discrimination complaints.” Advocates also noted an employee can be fired for being gay in 29 states and 33 states have no protections for transgender workers.
The next day, the Blade asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney whether Boehner’s continued obstruction of a House vote on ENDA has led to any reconsideration of an executive order from President Obama barring LGBT discrimination among federal contractors. Carney restated Obama’s support for ENDA and redirected attention to Boehner in his response.
“So we are not at all ready to believe that the fight is over in the House, because it is the president’s strong conviction that this is the right thing to do and that the arguments against it do not hold up to scrutiny or the test of history,” Carney said. “So we’re going to keep fighting for the House to take it up and urging the House to take it up.”
Despite the outward appearance of a standoff between the White House and the House of Representatives, LGBT advocates dismiss the notion of gridlock and say movement continues behind the scenes.
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, said some of the momentum seen in the Senate continues in the House.
“More than a dozen House members have joined as ENDA co-sponsors within the last month alone, and we just reached the 200 sponsor mark,” Almeida said “By the end of this week, Freedom to Work will have met with and lobbied more than 15 Republican House offices in the two weeks since the Senate vote, and we think the number of ENDA co-sponsors will continue to grow.”
Almeida predicted that ENDA “would pass if allowed to reach the floor of the House,” joining Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rep. Jared Polis and the Human Rights Campaign in making that assessment.
Laura Durso, director of the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress, said the standoff on action for LGBT workers actually exists elsewhere.
“I personally see the standoff really between the Republican leadership in the House and the bipartisan majority of the American public, the bipartisan majority in the Senate who had supported ENDA,” Durso said.
Meanwhile, ENDA supporters are continuing to draw attention to the lack of federal workplace non-discrimination protections for LGBT workers.
Last week, a coalition of groups including the Movement Advancement Project, issued an update to its series of reports on the state of LGBT workers with a new study that examines the particular plight faced by LGBT workers of color.
The report, titled “A Broken Bargain for LGBT Workers of Color,” takes a broader look at issues for LGBT people of color other than workplace discrimination, but finds they have higher rates of unemployment in comparison to their straight counterparts.
The unemployment rate for LGBT Asian and Pacific Islanders is 11 percent compared to 8 percent for straight Asian and Pacific Islanders; for LGBT Latinos it’s 14 percent compared to 11 percent for straight Latinos; and 15 percent for LGBT African Americans compared to 12 percent for straight African Americans.
Additionally, the report found unemployment rates for transgender people of color have reached as high as four times the national unemployment rate.
“Hiring bias and on-the-job discrimination mean that qualified LGBT workers of color may not have the opportunity to find jobs that match their abilities and aspirations and that allow them to support themselves and their families,” the report concludes.
CREDO, a progressive social change organization, has prepared an online petition calling on Boehner to allow a vote on ENDA. As of last week, more than 49,000 people had signed.
“The Employment Non-Discrimination Act passed the Senate,” the petition states. “Stop blocking an up-or-down vote, and let all members of the House go on the record about where they stand on equal rights in the workplace.”
Meanwhile, calls continue for President Obama to sign an executive order to bar LGBT discrimination among federal contractors. If the order were along the lines of Executive Order 11246 signed by President Lyndon Johnson, it would bar discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for federal contractors that earn more than $10,000 a year in federal contracts.
Sarah Trumble, policy counsel for the centrist group known as the Third Way, said the White House may decide to issue the executive order “as a down payment” for LGBT workers while anticipating later action from Congress.
“Because these issues are actually separate, even if the White House does issue the executive order, we would still need ENDA and Speaker Boehner would continue to feel the pressure to give the bill a vote,” Trumble said.
Almeida expressed frustration that the Obama administration continues to hold out on the executive order.
“There’s no need to wait months, or even wait days, before adding strong LGBT workplace protections to millions of American jobs,” Almeida said. “The unexplained delays by the Obama administration are perplexing.”
Almeida said that last week the company Bechtel, a global engineering and construction company, received a $143 million contract from the U.S. government even though protections for transgender workers aren’t included in its non-discrimination policy.
“The existing federal contractor Executive Order 11246 already bans sex discrimination, giving the Labor Department the authority to insert transgender protections into the language of contracts like the one Bechtel signed last week,” Almeida said. “But the Labor Department is sadly allowing those opportunities for progress to slip away.”
Such action from the Labor Department, Almeida noted, would bring the existing executive order into alignment with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity’s decision in Macy v. Holder that found transgender discrimination amounts to gender discrimination prohibited under current law.
“We will keep pushing for both President Obama and Labor Secretary Perez to take concrete action to ensure American taxpayer money is not squandered on harassment or discrimination,” Almeida concluded.
The Washington Blade on Wednesday spoke with Max Polonsky, a queer American who lives in Israel, about the Iran war and its impact on the country.
“It’s been tiring,” Polonsky told the Blade during a telephone interview from his home in Jaffa, an ancient port city with a large Arab population that is now part of Tel Aviv.
Polonsky grew up in Cherry Hill, N.J. He lived in D.C. for eight years before he moved to Israel in March 2022.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
An Iranian missile on March 1 killed nine people and injured 27 others in Beit Shemesh, an Israeli town that is roughly 20 miles west of Jerusalem. Shrapnel from an Iranian missile that struck a hair salon in Beit Awa, a Palestinian town in the West Bank, on Wednesday killed four women and injured more than a dozen others.
An Iranian drone that hit a command center in Kuwait on March 1 killed six U.S. soldiers: Sgt. Declan Coady, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, and Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien. Another American servicemember, Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, died on March 8, a week after Iranian drones and missiles targeted the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Iranian drones and missiles have damaged hotels, airports, oil refineries, and other civilian and energy infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and elsewhere. Israel on Wednesday attacked Iran’s South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.
The Associated Press notes roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the strategic waterway to ship traffic.
The war also left hundreds of thousands of people who were traveling in the Middle East stranded.
The Blade on March 6 spoke with Mario, who had stopped in his native Lebanon while traveling from the U.S. to India for work.
Mario was about to board a flight at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Feb. 28 when the war began and authorities closed the country’s airspace. Mario is now back in the U.S.
Polonsky told the Blade there were “alarms all day … sometimes multiple alarms an hour, sometimes every hour, every two hours” on Feb. 28.
Israel’s Home Front Command typically issues warnings about 10 minutes ahead of an anticipated Iranian missile attack. Sirens then sound 90 seconds before an expected strike.
People in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and in other cities in central Israel have 90 seconds to seek shelter if a rocket or missile is fired from Lebanon or the Gaza Strip. (Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shia militant group in Lebanon that Israel and the U.S. have designated a terrorist organization, launched rockets at the Jewish State after Khamenei’s death. Israel, in turn, continues to carry out airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed upwards of 1,200 people when they launched a surprise attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip.) People who live close to Lebanon and Gaza have 15 seconds to seek shelter.
Polonsky has a safe room — known as a “mamad” — in his apartment. Polonsky also uses it as his home office and a second bedroom.
He told the Blade the alerts in recent days have become less frequent.
“We’ll get maybe a handful of alarms during the day, maybe some at night,” said Polonsky.
Israel on June 12, 2025, launched airstrikes against Iran that targeted the country’s nuclear and military facilities. The subsequent war, which lasted 12 days, prompted the cancellation of Tel Aviv’s annual Pride parade. An Iranian missile destroyed Mash Central, the city’s last gay bar.
Iran on Oct. 1, 2024, launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. This reporter arrived in Israel three days later to cover the first anniversary of Oct. 7 and the impact the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip had on LGBTQ Israelis and Palestinians.
‘Iranian regime was bad’
Polonsky admitted he doesn’t “know what to think” about the latest war against Iran.
“I don’t know what I think about the war,” he said. “Ultimately what happens is just not in my personal control: whatever Donald Trump, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, the ayatollah, whoever is running Iran are going to organize and launch attacks and reach any deals is not anything I personally have any control over, so I try to just kind of let that aspect of it go as I’m living my life.”
Polonsky told the Blade he understands “there are very serious questions about how” the war started, and Congress’s role in it.
“Those are serious and valid, important questions,” he said. “And at the same time, the Iranian regime was bad.”
Polonsky noted Iran has supported and funded Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and other groups “who were attacking Israel.” Polonsky added the Iranian government has “terribly oppressed their people.”
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Reports indicate Iranian authorities killed upwards of 30,000 people during anti-government protests that began late last year. Sources with whom the Blade spoke said LGBTQ Iranians are among those who participated in the demonstrations.
“I’m not sad to see them pressured,” said Polonsky, referring to the Iranian regime.
He also described Khamenei as “a bad guy.”
“Him not being there is better,” said Polonsky.
Federal Government
Protesters say SAVE Act targets voters, transgender youth
Bill described as ‘Jim Crow 2.0’
Members of Congress, advocates, and people from across the country gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to protest proposed federal legislation that voting rights activists have deemed “Jim Crow 2.0.”
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require in-person proof of citizenship for anyone seeking to vote in U.S. elections.
President Donald Trump has also pushed for the proposed legislation to include a section that would ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, even with parental consent, and prohibit trans people from participating in school or professional sports consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
In addition to changing voter registration requirements, the bill would limit acceptable forms of identification to documents such as a birth certificate or passport — records that the Brennan Center for Justice estimates more than 21 million Americans do not have — effectively restricting access to the ballot. It would also ban online voter registration, DMV voter registration efforts, and mail-in voter registration.
A 2021 investigation by the Associated Press found that fewer than 475 people voted illegally or improperly, a tiny fraction of the estimated 160 million Americans who voted in the 2020 election.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke at the event.
“It will kick millions of American citizens off the rolls. And they don’t even require you to be told,” the highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate told protesters and reporters outside the Capitol. “If this law passes — and it won’t — you’re gonna show up in November … and they’ll say… sorry, you’re no longer on the voting rolls.”
He, like many other speakers, emphasized the bill in the context of American history, pointing to what he described as its racist roots and its impact on Black and brown Americans.
“I have called this act, over and over again, Jim Crow 2.0 … because they know it’s the truth.”
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was one of the lawmakers leading opposition to the legislation and spoke at the rally.
“It’s not just voting rights that are on the line — our democracy is on the line,” the California lawmaker said. “It’s not a voter I.D. bill. It’s a bait and switch bill.”
He added historical context, noting the significance of voting rights legislation passed more than 60 years ago. In 1965, Alabama civil rights activists marched to protest barriers to voter registration. Alabama state troopers violently attacked peaceful demonstrators at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, using tear gas, clubs, and whips against more than 500 — mostly Black — protesters.
“61 years ago — not to the day — but this week, President Lyndon Johnson came to the Capitol and addressed a joint session of Congress in the wake of Bloody Sunday and pushed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act,” Padilla said. “61 years later, Donald Trump and this Republican majority wants to take us backwards. We’re not gonna let that happen.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) also spoke, emphasizing that he views the effort as a Republican-led and Trump-backed attempt to restrict voting access, particularly among Black, brown, and predominantly Democratic communities.
“President Trump told Republicans when they were meeting behind closed doors that ‘The SAVE Act will guarantee Republicans win the midterms and ensure they do not lose an election for 50 years,’” Luján said. “The first time I think Donald Trump’s been honest … This voter suppression bill is only that. Taking away vote by mail? I hope my Republican colleagues from states that voted for Donald Trump or where vote by mail is popular have the courage and the backbone to stand up and say no to this nonsense, because their constituents are going to push back.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) also spoke.
“Our Republican colleagues have already cut Medicaid, Medicare, people don’t know how they’re gonna be able to afford energy,” she said, providing context for the broader political moment. “We’re in the middle of a war that they can’t even get straight while we’re in it and don’t have a way to get out of it. And we are now faced with defending our democracy?”
She then showed the crowd something that she said has been with her throughout her political journey in Washington.
“I brought with me something that I carried on the day that I was sworn into the House of Representatives when I was elected in 2016, and I carried it with me on the day that I was sworn in as United States senator. And I also carried it with me when I was trapped up in the gallery on Jan. 6 and all I could think to do was pray … This document allowed my great great great grandfather, who had been enslaved in Georgia, to have the right to vote. We took this and turned it into a scarf. It is the returns of qualified voters and reconstruction code from 1867. This is my proof of what we’ve been through. This is also our inspiration.”
“I got to travel between the Edmund Pettus Bridge two times. And even as I thought about this moment, I recognized that while we wish we weren’t in it, while we don’t know why we’re in it, I do know we were made for it … So I came today to tell you that, um, just like the leader said, that he calls it Jim Crow 2.0. I call it Jim Crow 2.NO.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the U.S., also spoke, highlighting the impact of the bill’s proposed provisions affecting trans people.
“This bill is not about saving America. This bill is about stealing an election. This bill is about suppressing voters,” Robinson said. “This bill not only tries to disenfranchise voters that deserve their right to vote, it also tries to criminalize trans kids and their families … It tries to criminalize doctors providing medically necessary care for our trans youth.”
The SAVE Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 11 but has not yet been considered in the U.S. Senate.
Obituary
Thomas A. Decker of Arlington dies at 73
Active in visiting AIDS patients, urging Congress to fight HIV
Thomas A. Decker Jr, of Arlington, Va., died March 3, 2026 following an extended illness, according to a statement released by his family. He was 73.
Born and raised in Canton, Ohio, Decker attended the University of Akron and earned his bachelor’s degree in political science. He then moved to the Washington, D.C. area and accepted a position with Beaver Press where he worked for 32 years, according to the statement.
He later worked in the Inova Juniper Program working with HIV/AIDS clients to assist them with support services and was active as a volunteer visiting AIDS patients in the hospital or advocating on Capitol Hill for HIV funding.
Tommy, as he was called by family, is survived by three sisters, a sister-in-law and two brothers-in-law: Carol Decker and Kathryn Kramer of West Newbury, MA, Margaret and Thomas Williams of Bluffton, SC, Mary Sue and Timothy Desiato of New Philadelphia, Ohio, Niece’s Trina and Chad Wedekind of Jacksonville Fl and great niece Isabella, Lindsay and Will Burgette of Dublin, Ohio and great nephews Colin and Luke and Nephews David Williams of Jacksonville, Florida, and Michael and Lucy Desiato of Dublin, Ohio and great nieces Lena and Stella. In accordance with Tom’s wishes, he will be buried at Calvary Cemetery in Massillon, Ohio.
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