Just out ▼ July 1. 1904 ▼ 7
Protections survive first
hurdle in health care
reform
One of the key issues in health care reform for
lesbians and gay men is to ensure strong nondis
crimination provisions that explicitly include
sexual orientation.
Those protections were still present in a ver
sion of Clinton’s approach to health care reform
that passed a major milestone June 9, by report
edly clearing its first full committee. That com
mittee is Education and Labor in the Senate,
chaired by Ted Kennedy. It is considered the
committee of jurisdiction most sympathetic to
the Clinton approach and to the interests of sexual
minorities. A loss here would have been devastat
ing to both.
Kansas Republican Nancy Kassebaum led an
effort in Kennedy’s committee to eliminate the
inclusive language, but her amendment was de
feated June 7 by an 11-6 vote. The vote was
largely along partisan lines, with only Jim Jeffords
(R-Vt.) joining the Democratic majority. That
same vote later passed the full bill out of commit
tee to meet its next hurdle.
Gay and lesbian political leaders, in a rare
show of unanimity, had called upon the commu
nity to contact senators on that committee and
urge them to support retaining the current nondis-
criminatory language in the draft of the bill.
“Kassebaum’s amendment is mean-spirited
at its core,” said Peri Jude Radecic, executive
director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force. “It is endorsing discrimination against gay
people, poor people, those who are currently sick,
or those who may become sick.”
The Senator’s office justified her position by
stating that “sexual orientation is a civil rights
issue, not a health care matter” and should there
fore be excluded.
“They don’t want to add any new status [such
as existing ones of race or national origin],” said
NGLTF’s legislative director Tanya Domi. “Well,
if you are doing health care reform it is the perfect
place to add new status [classifications].”
Domi criticized Kassebaum’s attempts to
eliminate compensatory and punitive damages
for intentional discrimination. She cited the ex
ample of the 1968 Fair Housing Act where those
remedies were not included in the original Act
and had to be added in 1988 to strengthen en
forcement.
The amending effort seemed out of character
for Kassebaum, who is usually viewed as moder
ate, accommodating and reasonable. “She is cav
ing in to the radical right’s special agenda to
institutionalize anti-gay discrimination,” said
Daniel Zingale, director of public policy at the
Human Rights Campaign Fund.
“I think a calculated decision was made that
she would make a better stalking-horse for dis
crimination than the usual suspects. We were all
surprised by it,” he said.
Log Cabin Republicans, a lobbyist group of
gay Republicans, joined with HRCF and NGLTF
in trying to generate grass-roots constituent phone
calls. A publicly posted e-mail advisory to its
supporters read, “If the exclusion passes, YOU
may be denied emergency care, or turned out of a
doctor’s office, or red-lined from a dentist’s prac
tice because you are gay, or they suspect you are
gay”
It urged supporters to contact three key sena
tors on the committee, David Durenberger (R-
Minn.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Jeffords.
“Because this is the first time that Kassebaum
has taken the lead on an anti-gay measure, we want
to make it uncomfortable for her back in Kansas,”
said Zingale.
The strategy seems to have worked. While
Kassebaum did not withdraw her amendment or
change her vote, Domi reported that at the June 7
committee meeting, “She wasn’t very high profile
about it, she just kept saying over again, ‘1 don’t
think this is appropriate.’ ”
The legislation must still pass the Senate Fi
nance Committee and the full Senate, in addition
to going through votes in committee and on the
floor of the House of Representatives. Those ven
ues are often less friendly. There are likely to be
other attempts to strike language which includes
protections for lesbians and gay men. The progno
sis is uncertain.
First congressional
hearing on homophobic
employment discrimination
The first hearing on federal efforts to ban
discrimination in employment against gay men
and lesbians will be held July 20 in New York
City. The hearing is being called by Rep. Major R.
Owens (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Educa
tion and Labor Subcommittee on Select Education
and Civil Rights.
It will be held at the Main Building of New
York University, 100 Washington Square East.
The setting is just a few blocks from the Stonewall
Inn, where rioting 25 years ago marked the begin
ning of the contemporary lesbian and gay struggle
for equality.
Braden Goetz, chief counsel for the subcom
mittee, said that a reorganization last year ex
panded its jurisdiction to include employment
discrimination. Since that time, Owens has been
aggressive in charting a course to complete what
he calls “the unfinished agenda” of the civil rights
c a th a rtic com ics I
struggle.
Constituents of Owens’ predominantly Afri
can American district had urged the lawmaker to
take a leadership role in this fight. They saw the
radical right “try and make the case that civil rights
are somehow divisible, that the interests of gay
men and lesbians are somehow opposed to Afri
can Americans’,” said Goetz. “One of the agendas
of this hearing is to make it clear that our interests
are the same. It is not us against them.”
The employment bill, backed by openly gay
Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Gerry Studds
(D-Mass.) in the House, and Ted Kennedy (D-
Mass.) in the Senate, is undergoing final revision
and should be formally introduced soon.
Goetz said his subcommittee began planning
the hearing in February when the form of the
proposed legislation was less clear. He views their
approach as “consistent” with the pending bill and
has been in contact with Frank’s office. “We are
all on the same page,” he said.
He noted that the bill would have to go through
his subcommittee as well as the Judiciary Sub
committee on Constitutional Rights.
Nine witnesses are scheduled to testify. They
include individuals who have suffered employ
ment discrimination for being lesbian or gay, as
well as representatives of national organizations
who will testify to broader patterns of discrimina
tion.
Time constraints will limit testimony to the
witnesses already scheduled. However, written
testimony may be submitted for the record. Copies
should be sent to: Subcommittee on Select Educa
tion and Civil Rights, 518 Annex 1, Washington,
DC 20515.
Frank schedules
Mississippi hearing
Prompted by the “nonprotection” of the lesbi
ans of Camp Sister Spirit, Rep. Barney Frank has
scheduled a fact-finding hearing of the House
Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights.
It is slated for July 6 in Jackson, Miss.
‘T his isn’t the most popular event in the his
tory of official Mississippidom,” said Frank,
“We’ve got to go to a federal building.” The
closest is in the capital city of Jackson, in the
central part of the state. Camp Sister Spirit is in the
hamlet of Ovett, more than a hundred miles to the
southeast.
Frank wants to check on the status of media
tion initiated by the Community Relations Service
of the Justice Department.
“Do we need an expanded federal role where
people are being abused by essentially private
citizens and the local officials won’t help them?”
asked Frank.
“Right now, if local officials fail to protect
you, in some limited circumstances the federal
government can step in. But, contrary to what
people expect, there are no general federal respon
sibilities to step in and protect people."
Frank initially proposed the hearing in Febru
ary, when the controversy heated up. He delayed
it at the joint request of the Justice Department and
the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. CRS
was then preparing to send mediators into the area.
“We are afraid that a hearing during the media
tion process would interfere with the mediation
process and actually being able to help the women
and protect them,” said NGLTF executive direc
tory Peri Jude Radecic in February. "We would
rather have trained mediation people go down
there and deal with the situation first."
The legal authority of CRS to intervene was
challenged by local citizens, but that challenge
was subsequently thrown out of court. CRS’ ef
forts to mediate appear to have been largely frus
trated by noncooperation.
Frank had noted earlier that February 1994 was
the 30th anniversary of the Mississippi Freedom
Summer, an important part of the 1960s civil
rights movement. He participated in that action
and says he returns to Mississippi in the ongoing
struggle for civil rights.
Military maneuvers
on the hill
In late May, Bob Doman (R-Calif.) convinced
House Armed Services subcommittee chair Ike
Skelton (D-Mo.) to attach a rider to the Depart
ment of Defense reauthorization bill which would
force the military to discharge anyone with a
medical condition, a permanent disease or disabil
ity, that precluded their worldwide assignability.
Doman’s target was people who are HIV positive.
The House of Representatives voted June 8 to
reverse that decision and retain the status quo. The
vote was 227-192.
“Fortunately Congressman Dornan took a
pretty broad brush in crafting his language, so that
military personnel with any type of disability or
chronic disease would have been affected by that
amendment,” said Jay Cobum, a lobbyist with the
AIDS Action Council.
Not only would it have forced the discharge of
people who are HIV positive, it also would have
led to the forced discharge of people with mild
diabetes, lower back pain, and dozens of other
chronic, manageable medical conditions.
Cobum lays the relatively close vote to parti
san politics. “The name of the game of being a
Republican in the House these days is to embar
rass the president, so there is incredible pressure
from the leadership to stick with the party.”
Compiled by Bob Roehr
featuring The Brown Bomber and Diva Touché Flambé
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