JUNE 26TH 2009
nyblade
Power: Amend Civil Rights Act to Protect Gays
Marriage equality, hate crimes, ENDA—though important, these bills will not attain full civil equality for all LGBT Americans. Amending the Civil Rights Act will.
By Trenton Straube
New Yorkers protested against California's Prop 8 at a rally at City Hall last November. (Photo: Gary Rissman)
New Yorkers protested against California's Prop 8 at a rally at City Hall last November. (Photo: Gary Rissman)
Imagine a federal law that would give all LGBT Americans full civil rights and ban discrimination against them. Sound too far-reaching, too aggressive? Such legislation has already been introduced—in 1974.
More than three decades ago, then-U.S. Reps. Bella Abzug and Ed Koch, both from New York, introduced the Equality Act of 1974 to amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include gays and lesbians. Though it didn’t pass, it set the bar high for the LGBT movement—a mark our current leadership is not even aiming for.
That will change June 29, 2009, the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, when an online organizing network called The Power officially launches a movement to expand the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The act already bars discrimination against race, color, religion, national origin and sex in the broader areas of employment, housing, financial credit and public accommodations.
The Power is spearheading an online petition via thepoweronline.org. On the morning of June 29, the effort will officially launch with an action in front of the Stonewall Inn. At a later date, petitions will be delivered to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In part, the petition states:
“We the undersigned call up you and your colleagues to … declare it the public policy of the United States that discrimination based on LGBT status is prohibited.…
“As Michelle Obama said on Gay Pride Day last year, ‘We are all only here because of those who marched and bled and died, from Selma to Stonewall, in the pursuit of a more perfect union.’ We stand united in that struggle and will not accept any effort to roll back the protections of the Civil Rights Act. But we must insist that they be expanded in order for the Act to truly live up to its name.”
According to Power founder Jeff Campagna, a Democratic fundraiser and former lawyer, the response to the petition has been “tremendous, in part because of the unfortunate missteps by the Obama administration and the recognition that for 40 years our struggle has been about attaining full equality and not just piecemeal legislation.”
Campagna is referring to myriad LGBT-related bills meandering through Capitol Hill. This includes efforts to repeal the military policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) and the federal ban against same-sex marriage recognition called the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), as well as efforts to pass the Hate Crimes bill (a.k.a., the Matthew Shepard Act), the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the United American Families Act (UAFA), which provides immigration equality of LGBT Americans in binational relationships.
SMART STRATEGY
The movement to amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act places LGBT issues in terms of U.S. civil rights struggles—a language most Americans are familiar with, particularly our chief executive.
During the 2007 presidential debate on Logo, then-candidate Obama was asked about marriage equality and whether his stance for civil unions amounted to separate but equal. Referencing his interracial parents, whose marriage would have been illegal in many states, Obama said he related to the marriage issue personally. But then he added a insightful aside: “If I were advising the civil rights movement in 1961 about its approach to civil rights, I would have probably said it’s less important that we focus on an anti-miscegenation law than we focus on a voting rights law and a non-discrimination employment law and all the legal rights that are conferred by the states.”
That’s not to say marriage equality isn’t an important fight. But advocates worry that devoting so much of the movement’s energy and headlines to gay marriage has been a strategic mistake.
“You usually only get one shot at doing a major amendment to a pre-existing civil rights law, or one ability to craft legislation in Congress,” said Liz Abzug, an urban studies professor at Barnard College-Columbia University and a former civil rights enforcer for the state and federal governments (and, yes, Bella Abzug’s daughter). “So when you get that chance, you have to do it in the most comprehensive way.”
“While marriage is important,” Campagna added, “it’s a polarizing issue. And it’s most important to those who want to get married. And while DOMA is important, it’s important to those who want to serve. We need something that speaks to the young, the old, the militant and the peaceful, the domestic and foreign, to victims of violence as well as those who suffer from more insidious forms of discrimination.”
In terms of enforcing civil rights protections and filing discrimination cases, Abzug said, it makes more sense to build upon the Civil Rights Act than to draft new legislation.
For starters, it’s already on the books and has strong legal standing. There is even precedent for expanding it—for example, in 1972, Title VII was amended to strengthen protections for women. Adding LGBT people would be a natural progression.
“The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and then subsequent regulations to allow for discrimination cases to be brought in an agency and courts really opened up and crafted law all the way up to the Supreme Court all over the county,” Abzug said. “It opened up opportunities and access that African Americans could never have in a host of institutional structures. We need to do that here too.”
NOW’S THE TIME
It’s never a convenient time politically to improve civil rights, but 2009 affords a rare opportunity for the LGBT population, according to Dan Pinello, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York and the author of “Gay Rights American Struggle.”
Polls consistently show a growing sympathy among Americans for LGBT rights, with about 44 percent for legalizing same-sex marriage and 65 percent for repealing DADT. In addition, we have a Democratic president and about a 60 percent Democratic majority in Congress, “but with midterm elections next year, the Congressional power dynamics may change to our disadvantage,” Pinello said, pointing out that another presidential election cycle will begin the following year.
“My feeling is, if you have the iron and it’s hot, then strike,” he summed up. “This is the year to strike—there is no doubt about that.”
But Democratic dominance is only part of the picture. The LGBT community has been fired up over a seemingly non-stop barrage of offenses since Election Day, when California passed gay marriage ban Proposition 8 and Arizona, Arkansas and Florida also stripped away gay rights.
“The election exposed a sore spot in a movement in which many of us consider ourselves Democrats,” Campagna said. “Many people were disappointed that the Democratic Party did nothing to mobilize against the four anti-gay referenda that voters adopted in November.”
And to many, Obama did nothing but fuel their anger. The president invited homophobic pastor Rick Warren to speak at the inauguration. He failed to repeal the HIV travel ban and DADT, as promised. He remained silent as a cluster of states legalized same-sex marriage.
Tensions reached a boiling point this month when a Department of Justice brief supported DOMA with language that compared gay marriage to incest and argued that denying us benefits saves the government money.
Community leaders harshly and publicly criticized Obama. They also cut the purse strings to the Democratic Party by dropping out of a high-profile fundraiser slated for June 25.
Now on the defensive, Obama hastily signed last week a memorandum extending benefits to some federal employees in same-sex relationships. But even mainstream media pointed out a major flaw: the “benefits” excluded social security and health care.
Then the administration announced it would include same-sex couples in the upcoming census. But it mentioned nothing about counting self-identified single LGBT people.
“Our community is starting to realize that however much our straight allies and elected officials say they support us, it’s not clear they understand what our objectives are,” Campagna said. “So it’s important to say to the public and government that it’s not about one, two, three or four discrete pieces of legislation, but full legal civil equality.”
Gay advocates expect further offerings from the Obama administration. In fact, just this week, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) reintroduced the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that offers a fraction of the protections afforded by amending the Civil Rights Act.
HISTORY LESSONS
ENDA’s precursor is Bella Abzug and Ed Koch’s Equality Act of 1974 (which is also the first gay rights legislation introduced federally). So how did we go from seeking full civil equality in 1974 to accepting incremental gains such as a whittled-down ENDA?
Liz Abzug gives two Italian words as an answer: “No coraggio!”
Translation: No courage.
Perhaps so. But the Lesbian & Gay Task Force, which championed the groundbreaking 1974 legislation, offers a historical timeline on its web site. Here’s an abridged primer: The many civil rights advances of the ’70s caught the religious right off guard. They quickly organized and attacked (note that in the film “Harvey Milk,” the anti-gay forces were stripping away recent LGBT gains). Meanwhile AIDS struck in the ’80s, leaving members of our community to fight for their lives instead of civil rights—while under Republican reign. But even when the GOP lost the White House in the ’90s, conservative Southern Democrats thwarted any truly progressive agendas.
One quick historical footnote on ENDA: The Republican-controlled Congress allowed Democrats to introduce ENDA in 1996 under one condition: The Dems not filibuster DOMA. The plan backfired. The day of the ENDA vote, a supportive lawmaker had to leave DC for a family emergency and the bill narrowly failed. As we are all very aware of today, DOMA passed. In November 2007, the House passed ENDA, but only after Rep. Frank took out transgender protections.
ACT NOW
That brings us to today. June 2009. Stonewall 40. The launch of a renewed movement to gain full civil equality for LGBT Americans by amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Campagna urges everyone to sign the petition at thepoweronline.org—then forward it on to friends, allies, family and coworkers, both straight and gay.
“We need to quantify our support and go to Speaker Pelosi and our legislators and say, ‘These are the people in your district who support this amendment.’”
The petition drive doesn’t end June 29. And other aspects of the campaign will kick off after that date.
“In the upcoming months, we’ll continue to work with members of Congress, the media and public to show there is support for this legislation,” Campagna said. “So that when we all gather in October at the march on Washington, the White House will know that what we demand is full equality now. No delays. No excuses.”
For more information or to sign the petition, log onto thepoweronline.org.
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