House Speaker John Boehner
The Republican-controlled House is now the only thing keeping workplace discrimination against LGBT people legal, by standing in the way of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. So what's the plan to move forward and prohibit discrimination? Shame.
Democrats hope that just as they successfully shamed House Speaker John Boehner into allowing a vote on the Senate's bipartisan version of the Violence Against Women Act, they can use public pressure to get a House vote on ENDA. There are important differences between the two, though:
“There is no comparison,” [a senior House Republican] aide said. “The House had already passed a VAWA bill, and the differences with the Senate bill — while important — were relatively small. Also, the underlying issue had far broader public support.”
Not that House Republican leadership admitted at the time that their differences with the Senate VAWA bill were "relatively small," but they were fundamentally willing to say that preventing violence against women was something worth embracing in limited ways. Whereas gay and transgender people having the right to keep or lose their jobs based on performance rather than who they are is not so much an idea Republicans back.
But what about public support? That Senior House Republican aide tried to imply it's low by saying that "the underlying issue" in VAWA "had far broader public support." Maybe so. But don't let that fool you into thinking ENDA is unpopular:
Nearly all recent opinion polls indicate that a large majority of the American public — more than 70 percent — supports efforts to make employment discrimination against gay men and and lesbians illegal.
What's more, many people believe it is
already law.
Even House Republicans—most of them, anyway—are unlikely to come out and say they think discrimination is a good thing. They have a host of excuses for their refusal to support, or even allow a vote on, this popular legislation. But it really is nothing but excuses and attempts to mislead. And that's where the Democratic strategy of shaming them comes right back in.