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#ENDAIsNOTequal #DeadENDA #ENDENDA #WTFHRC

By Melanie Nathan, June 05, 2014.

Washington Blade is reporting that The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR)  announced today that it does not support the current version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act pending before Congress because of the bill’s religious exemption. A schism has developed amongst activists with grassroots pitted against the major organizations for months. Now while The Human Rights campaign continues to fight ferociously for ENDA’s passage, regardless of the onerous religious exemptions, NCLR has had the courage to disagree and to take the stance of grassroots activists.

“Shannon Minter, legal director for the San Francisco-based legal organization, told the Washington Blade that NCLR doesn’t support ENDA because the religious exemption is greater than it is under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for other classifications of people.” (The Blade)

Well done NCLR!

We are proud of you for standing up to the over authoritarian HRC which thinks it owns our leadership!

Individual activists have taken the lead on this stance.  However NCLR, ACLU, TLC and other major organizations initially said they had grave concerns about ENDA’s overly onerous religious exemptions, and then seemed to pull back from their original stance, remaining silent while the Senate passed ENDA in its current form.

It has taken months and finally at least NCLR has now come out strongly against the ENDA in its current form.

HRC has taken the lead in pushing for this legislation which is half baked and does nothing more than entrench more discrimination into legislation. This is now a courageous breaking of the ranks by NCLR and much needed.

I believe the most vocal to date on this issue, and may well have impacted NCLR’s decision to come out,  have been the folks at Queer Nation,  and also Ellen Sturtz, David John Fleck, Cathy Kristofferson, Ken Kidd, Duncan Obsborne, Andrew Miller and of course Melanie Nathan. There are many others. GetEQUAL seemed fearful of taking a major stance to be truly vocal about this push to stop this awful ENDA in its tracks.

Yesterday, Meghan Stabler a board member of Human Rights Campaign (HRC) stood up for ENDA on her Facebook page and when I challenged her on the issue she suggested that I open an organization of my own if I felt that way.  I suggested to her in private and publicly that HRC consider a town hall with members of the community in a debate format with Queer Nation, to discuss the ENDA and avert the schism that is developing in our community. Queer Nation said it would love to debate the issue and HRC’s Meghan Stabler, though only a board member, did not respond.  Grassroots activists understand that Chad Griffin HRC President would be the one to respond to such a request – but he does not respond to e-mails. So why bother. I thought Meghan would be a good conduit. Perhaps not!

This is what Shannon Minton of NCLR told The Blade:

“We strongly oppose any religious exemption in ENDA or any other federal, state, or local non-discrimination law that is broader than the religious exemption that already exists under federal civil rights laws,” Minter said. “We do not support legislation that will create a new and broader exemption for LGBT people than exists for other protected groups. While we are confident the current discriminatory religious exemption in ENDA will not be part of the final legislation, we will not continue to support ENDA if it is not changed to be consistent with Title VII’s religious exemption.”

To clarify, Minter said his organization “does not support any version of ENDA that contains the current discriminatory religious exclusion.”

Here is the referenced Facebook discussion with HRC Board Member Meghan Stabler – she believes that ENDA should pass as is, even though it is fraught with unacceptable religious exemptions.  And Meghan presumed NCLR was still on board as she states in this thread. Clearly she was incorrect, demonstrating that  HRC ‘s board members do not know what other organizations are contemplating:

 

AND THE GRASSROOTS HIT BACK:

And Meghan STABLER’s incorrect assumption that NCLR still support this ENDA

 

AND THEN THE INSULT INSTEAD OF DISCUSSION AND COLLABORATION :

 

AND THEN THE ABOVE CHALLENGE BY MELANIE ACCEPTED BY QUEER NATION:

 

Here are all our Advocacy articles against the current ENDA – YES we ahve been writing and protesting for months and are ecstatic to see this stand by NCLR:

THIS IS THE ARTICLE I SENT TO NCLR’s Kate Kendell early last month: