6 ▼ July 1. 1 9 0 4 ▼ j u . t o u t
G&M
Automotive
PDX
Automotive
6006 E Burnside, Portland "
231-8486
national news
5934 NE Halsey. Portland
282-3315
Job protection
introduced
It’s not about granting special rights, says Sen. Ted Kennedy,
it’s “about righting senseless wrongs”
T
*M echanics w ith a C onscience"
by Bob Roehr
he Employment Non-Discrimination
» 9
1 Act is a great endeavor. It is another
9
significant step on freedom’s jour-
ney—another milestone in the civil
rights march of our time,” said Sen.
Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) at a news conference
introducing the bill.
It prohibits an employer from discriminating
on the basis of an employee’s sexual orientation
in the context of hiring, firing, promotion or
compensation.
“This bill is not about granting special rights,”
said Kennedy. “It is about righting senseless
wrongs.”
Representatives from approximately twodozen
supporting organizations were arrayed behind
him. A bevy of television cameras, reporters and
supporters before him jammed the hearing room
of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Com
mittee.
“This bill is not about statistics. It is about real
Americans whose lives and livelihoods are being
shattered by prejudice,” said Kennedy. He went
on to cite examples from across the nation.
“Job discrimination is not only un-American,
it is unprofitable and counterproductive.” Kennedy
pointed to more than a quarter of the Fortune 1000
companies who have moved
to eliminate this discrimina
tion and “create a workplace
environment where everyone
can excel.”
“For too long, our nation
has tolerated this insidious
form of discrimination against
this group of Americans, who
have worked as hard as any
other group, paid their taxes
like everyone else, and yet
have been denied equal pro
tection under the law,” said
Coretta Scott King, the em
bodiment of the civil rights Rep. Barney Frank
movement.
“As my husband, Martin Luther King Jr., said,
injustice anywhere is a threat to justice every
where. ’ Like Martin, I don’t believe you can stand
for freedom for one group of people and deny it to
others.
“So I see this bill as a step forward for freedom
and human rights in our country and a logical
extension of the Bill of Rights and the civil rights
reforms of the 1950s and 1960s,” said King.
“This is a great day for democracy. Mr.
Jefferson and Martin Luther King are smiling,”
said Justin Dart Jr. Dart was an appointee of
former President George Bush and a driving force
behind passage of the last great piece of civil
rights legislation, the Americans with Disabilities
Act.
“Civil rights puts the ‘free’ in free enterprise.
America is not rich in spite of civil rights, America
is rich because of civil rights,’’said Dart.
Rep. Barney Frank took the offensive with a
pre-emptive spin: “We tried very hard to antici
pate the nonsense, though I will confess, our
ability to anticipate nonsense lags behind the
ability of our opponents to manufacture it.
“We will run into a great deal of distortion—
‘don’t give special rights to gay men and lesbi
ans,’ ” said Frank. He called the ENDA “one of
the.most carefully, drafted bills.you.w ill ever
see...about 20 percent of it tells you what it
Qm
Free ride to MAX
CERTIFIED MECHANICS
Com plete automotive
service of foreign and
domestic cars and
light trucks
Gerard Lillie
Todd Connelly
WE SELL THE PAST.
1 reasures of tr;i>h rescued from
the w r e c k i n g ball.
W e h a v e n ’t
t u r n e d o u r back on o u r second
hand roots.
We still buy & sell
used doors, old tubs, hardware,
siding & more.
Ill
dmllVENATION
È
MOPt-SAT 9 -6 SUM I 2-5
I to o
S C .
QRAnD
A venue
111
ill
111
III
AT TAYLOR.
TCLEPnOnE
PORTLAnD.
256-1900
ORCQOn
9 7 2 14
tm m
9
doesn’t do.
“We have produced a bill that says one thing
and one thing only: You cannot be discriminated
against of the basis of your sexual orientation.
And it absolutely prohibits any other use of this
bill.”
Frank urged those assembled and the press to
go to states that have already passed similar
protection for lesbians and gay men and “you will
find none of the horror stories that the opponents
are going to bring forward.”
Ralph Neas, executive director of the Leader
ship Conference on Civil Rights, the coalition
which has led the fight for every major civil rights
law since 1957, threw the support of that organi
zation behind the Employment Non-Discrimina
tion Act. He said it is the first time LCCR has
“endorsed a specific legislative measure which
prohibits discrimination against gays and lesbi-
ans.
Kennedy labeled the 30 co-sponsors in the
Senate “strong support,” noting that a previous
gay and lesbian civil rights bill had only gathered
16 co-sponsors. A majority of the members of his
Human Resources committee have already signed
on. A committee hearing will be scheduled “right
after the Fourth of July, and we have every expec
tation of reporting this legisla
tion out by the end of July,”
Kennedy said.
Frank and Rep. Gerry
Studds (D-Mass.) are the prin
cipal sponsors in the House.
About 100 members have al
ready signed on as co-spon
sors, and the number is still
growing. Frank said, “We have
been told by a lot of people
they are going to vote for it, but
don’t quite want to co-sponsor
it at this point.” Hearings in the
House are likely after Labor
Day.
Frank expressed hopes that
“The presence of genuine bipartisanship on both
sides will reduce the temptation to use this for
partisan purposes, and we can get this to a debate
on its merits. I think we are in very good shape.”
Introduction of the bill caps months of work
by lesbian and gay and civil rights organizations
to forge the draft bill most likely to achieve
passage. The Human Rights Campaign Fund
played a major role in the process, as did the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. But the
effort also spread to embrace Log Cabin Repub
licans and several religious denominations.
The bill differs from existing civil rights stat
utes in that “the ENDA contains a broader reli
gious exemption, and it excludes disparate impact
claims. In addition, the ENDA specifically pro
hibits affirmative action,” stated explanatory lit
erature distributed at the news conference.
‘Traditional statistical analysis, which lies at
the core of most race or gender disparate impact
claims, is difficult to conduct in the context of
sexual orientation discrimination,” it read. “Pri
vacy concerns usually preclude an accurate statis
tical count of gay, bisexual and straight employ
ees in either the workplace or applicant pool.”
The bill does not require companies to offer
domestic partner benefits and does not apply to
the-military___________________________