Principle and pragmatism in ENDA

The Bay Area Reorter has a good Op-Ed by law professor, Dale Carpenter (http://www.ebar.com/columns/column.php?sec=outright&article=54) that again looks at what is politically possible versus what is idealistically pure. Like my earlier post, he notes that most of the "purists" are not the ones living in Red America and faced with the daily possibility of job loss because of their sexual orientation. Here are portions of the column:

That brings us to pragmatic considerations.

ENDA doesn't "include" anybody if it can't pass. Nobody knows how long it might take to educate Congress about trans issues. In the meantime, in 31 states there will be no job protection for gay people. Shall we make them wait a year? Five years? Forever?

Some have noted that even if a gay-only ENDA overcomes a filibuster in the Senate, President Bush might veto it. That's certainly possible and maybe probable, but a trans-inclusive ENDA would make both Senate passage and presidential approval less likely. Even if Bush vetoed ENDA, simply winning in the House would be a historic victory. It would build political momentum for more advances later.

Progress in civil rights has never been an all-or-nothing proposition. If it were, we'd still be waiting to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protected blacks from job discrimination, but left out the aged and disabled people. When the law was expanded in 1991, but still excluded sexual orientation, gay people didn't picket the NAACP.

Even an inclusive ENDA won't include lots of groups subject to systematic discrimination, like homely, short, or overweight people. Other nonconformists often thought part of the LGBT community, like leather fetishists and sadomasochists, won't be protected. Why shouldn't we wait for them, too?

Ironically, many of the activists demanding trans inclusion live in states where an incremental approach to gay and trans rights is well understood. California adopted gay civil rights laws long before trans protections. One of the groups opposed to a gay-only ENDA is the Empire State Pride Agenda, the New York gay rights group, which just four years ago lobbied successfully for a gay-only state anti-discrimination law because a trans-inclusive one couldn't pass.

The opposition to ENDA is coming mostly from a cadre of articulate, politically aware, and protected gay activists living in cocoons on the coasts and in large cities. They are imposing gender and queer theory on the lives of millions of gay Americans throughout the South, Midwest, and West. They charge that a gay-only ENDA manifests a selfish willingness to throw transgenders out of the boat.

Instead, the all-or-nothing ENDA manifests a self-satisfied willingness to sell the fly-over gays down the river. Hearts pure and integrity intact, elite activists who already have their rights will defend their high-minded principles right down to the last gay Alabamian.