A Republican senator from Nevada’s decision to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act appears to provide the 60th vote to prevent a filibuster of the legislation to ban workplace discrimination against lesbian, gay and transgender people. Talking Points Memo reports.
Opposition lobbying has been furious and preposterous.
According to a report in the New York Times, they appear to be waging a whisper campaign spreading false claims such as that ENDA would require insurers to cover sex change operations, that it’d lead to children being taught by men in dresses and that it’d require Christian bookstores to hire drag queens.
It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so sad. A good example of the level of dishonesty coming from so-called “Christians” was Sen. Jason Rapert’s broadcast of a virulently homophobic post on Twitter by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association.
Burn up the phone lines. Tell senators “No” on ENDA before they make it a crime to fire a pedophile.
There’s no way to characterize such a lie as anything but evil.
The Republican-led House isn’t likely to approve the legislation. Of interest will only be how bodacious the lies told by Arkansas House members to justify discrimination that 80 percent of Arkansans said in a recent poll they don’t support. In the Senate, Mark Pryor has said he’ll support the bill. Dr. No Boozman has indicated he won’t, for spurious legal reasons.
UPDATE: Republican Speaker John Boehner has made it clear the legislation will die in the House. He’ll cast legal protections against workplace discrimination as an invitation to “frivolous” litigation. Equality is frivolous to many Republicans.
President Obama has made his support clear.
UPDATE II: The Senate held its cloture vote and 61 voted against a filibuster. It will pass the Senate this week and then meet a buzz saw of opposition fro the right-wing Republican so-called Christian base who will argue that sexual orientation is a “preference” and that employers who feel this way should continue to be allowed to discriminate. Toomey and Portman joined all Democrats and a handful of Republicans for equality.