The United States Senate Democratc Cloakroom floor information recording reports that S. 815, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013, is likely to be voted upon tomorrow in an historic Senate roll call vote at 1:45 PM.
ENDA would forbid discrimination against GLBT people in employment, but not housing, public accomodations or education. That's progress, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
Yet blinkered Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner (R-Ohio) has already announced he won't allow a vote. That's crass, crude and undemocratic, running the People's House like a dictatorship.
Meanwhile, closer to home, our City of St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach both easily banned housing discrimination, both unanimously, during the past eleven months. Yet ENDA does not even cover housing, public accomodations or education, only employment. And why not?
The problem lies with our timid, timorous, tendentious Democratic friends in Congress: they too often "make their deals on the front end," instead of proposing synoptic legislation -- settling in advance for "half a loaf," or less, instead of the whole "enchilada." They need spinal and testicular implants. They need more adviserswho are seasoned legal scholars and litigators, instead of dull apparatchik arachnids fresh out of law schools, corporate law firms (or turkey farms), lugubrious goobers who don't know peaturkey about a durn thing.
When GLBT people buy or rent real estate, stay at a motel, dine in a restaurant or apply to a graduate program, should it be legal under federal law to discrimination against us? Nope.
But, for federal purposes, the Civil Rights housing and public accommodations victories of 1968 and 1964, respectivey, are somehow deemed "a bridge too far."
Some day we'll elect more courageous leaders, but for now, tomorrow's victory will be sweet enough for now. Meanwhile, we await St. Johns County's Tourist Development Council answering our request to provide lists of GLBT-friendly accomodations for our visitors, and stop violating our Fair Housing ordinances in the cities of S. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach. What do y'all reckon? (This reckon's for you).
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