There are no rainbow flags flying over the Korean Ministry of Justice…
Throughout the drama that has surrounded the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, those who have championed passage of H.R. 3685 — the version without gender identity or expression — have cast the debate in terms of ‘incremental’ progress vs. a radical ‘all or nothing’ approach.
In applauding passage of ENDA without gender identity, the New York Times editorial of November 9 opined that “Throughout American history, civil rights have been achieved in incremental steps…” If the New York Times got it wrong, so did the Washington Post, whose editorial of Nov. 3 called U.S. Rep. Barney Frank’s decision to push passage of H.R. 3685 without gender identity or expression “a painful but wise choice” that was “made to increase the bill’s chance of passage.”
Those non-transgendered gay men and lesbians who are tempted to buy that line about exclusion representing ‘incremental progress’ should consider the removal of sexual orientation from non-discrimination legislation in Korea.
On October 2, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Korea announced that it had drafted a non-discrimination bill for introduction in the South Korean parliament. But at the last minute, the justice ministry decided to strip sexual orientation from the bill, along with medical history, national origin, family type and status, criminal or detention record, and educational status from the bill.
Human Rights Watch has sent a letter to the prime minister protesting the exclusion, which came at the prompting of the religious right and their allies in parliament. Following an urgent appeal to IGLHRC from the Alliance Against Homophobia and Discrimination Against Sexual Minorities, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission is also demanding restoration of sexual orientation in the non-discrimination legislation under consideration.
“A coalition of 40 LGBT groups in South Korea, called the Alliance Against Homophobia and Discrimination Against Sexual Minorities, is asking for a coordinated international response to stop the most recent draft of the anti-discrimination legislation from going before the National Assembly, IGLHRC said in a statement released on Nov. 13. “The Alliance demands that sexual orientation is restored as a protected category,” the statement continues.
Sound familiar? The appeal for inclusion coming from the LGBT Korean coalition sounds to me so much like that made by the United ENDA coalition to the House Democratic leadership, which fell on deaf ears when Speaker Nancy Pelosi — prodded by Barney Frank — decided to confirm the exclusion of transgendered people from ENDA and move forward with the non-inclusive bill, which passed the House on Nov. 7.
It seems to me that the situation in Korea offers a cautionary tale for those who would believe that the non-inclusive ENDA bill represents incremental progress. For lesbian, gay and bisexual Koreans, passage of the non-discrimination bill stripped of sexual orientation does not represent progress, but rather regress — regress from the original draft legislation, which included them.
Similarly, transgendered Americans left out of the ENDA, House passage earlier this month of H.R. 3685 does not represent progress but only regress — regress to the notion that it is acceptable to exclude from the protections of the law an entire class of people simply because of their gender identity or expression. Unfortunately, the Human Rights Campaign — the wealthiest and now more than ever clearly the most influential LGBT rights organization in the United States — has now fully embraced the notion that the exclusion of transgendered and gender-variant people from civil rights legislation represents ‘progress.’
The problem with the notion of ‘incremental progress’ is that one (gay) man’s incremental progress is another (transgendered) man’s or woman’s lack of progress. The debate over ‘incrementalism’ is a false debate. The real question is one of commitment to principle vs. shameless political self-promotion and partisan advantage. In advancing the non-inclusive version of ENDA, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and HRC have chosen to promote a political agenda that has little if anything to do with advancing a civil rights agenda and everything to do with self-interested political gain at the expense of the community of whose behalf they claim to be working.
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YOU may view the progression of GMLT rites in an incremental manner as a "false" debate - but that is merely your one highly biased opinion. It most certainly isn't fact and it mostly certainly is NOT the view held by the VAST majority of people I've discussed this issue with. Quite the contrary.
"Visiblevote08" does a great disservice to the entire GLBT community when it cannot choose writers who maintain a balanced and objective point of view. Unfortuantely, this is consistent with gay media/political venues - a fact many GLBT people aren't aware of - but now are finding out the hard way.
*** If my memory serves me right , it only applied to acquistion and expansion of rights for certain THINGS like housing ,public accomadations etc. but it DID NOT EXCLUDE OR DISCRIMINATE AGAINST A CLASS OR GROUP OF PEOPLE" like this version of ENDA which excludes transgendered people.***
Incorrect: gays and lesbians have been excluded from EVERY civil rights bill passed to date (except for the recent passage of ENDA). To suggest that "everyone" was included in previous bills ignores the very group of people you are hoping will include trans people - gays and lesbians. I'd suggest that you select a different approach.
That kind of cluelessness allows people to think that Hillary Clinton, who sat on the board of Wal-Mart for six years, who sold herself to the HMO/Pharmaceutical complex, and who’s well liked by Santorum, Brownback, Pat Robertson and Murdoch is a ‘progressive’.
That kind of ‘real politick’ is an excuse to sell out as the Democrats do every time they vote to fund the war, cut taxes for the rich or deregulate industry. In our case it led to an ENDA that threw ALL of us under the bus because Frank allowed rightwing Democrats and Republicans to amend it to death. It won’t fly in court, and in the end very few of us will be helped by it. The Democrat’s version of ENDA isn’t incrementalism; it’s a sellout. Its major beneficiaries are the bigoted business owners who profit from paying us lower wages based on our sexual and gender identity; it guarantees that they’ll continue making a mint off of us.
Our kind of real politics consists of leaving the political closet based on dependence on Republicans and the Democrats and more accurately identifying them as enemies or at best untrustworthy frauds who’ll do what’s right when we compel them to. We have to work on ways to simultaneously develop our own independent political voice and form alliances. And we need to take a wide awake look at elections.
The basic question is do we stay in the political closet and indulge in fantasies about ‘progressive’ friends like Frank, Feinstein, Reid, Pelosi, Obama and Clinton, or do we use elections to campaign for our own agenda, which is full equality.
366 plus organizations and tens of thousands of activists are committed to passing a real ENDA and protecting the hate crimes bill. Those who claim that most GLBT folk disagree with UnitedENDA and believe that sellouts are in the majority are living in a fantasy world. As these centrists and right wingers move further right they’ll continue to isolate themselves. Eventually they’ll just leave the movement.
donal1944@msn.com
"Politcal reality" perhaps ,you should recall what Rev. Martin Luther King said in his "I Have A Dream Speech" that was also more recently reiterated by his wife Coretta before she died:
"Like Martin, I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others. I have worked too long and hard against segregated pub-lic accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern: justice is indivisible.”... BOTTOM LINE All FORMS of DISCRIMINATION is IMMORAL,UNFAIR,UNJUST and JUST PlAIN WRONG!
I think some of you beleive say that incrementalism historicaly occured in the enactment and passage of Civil Rights legislation. I think not! If my memory serves me right , it only applied to acquistion and expansion of rights for certain THINGS like housing ,public accomadations etc. but it DID NOT EXCLUDE OR DISCRIMINATE AGAINST A CLASS OR GROUP OF PEOPLE" like this version of ENDA which excludes transgendered people.
Also, with reference to "Poltical Reality", we all know "W" will VETO ANY version of ENDA. In that light, by excluding transgender people in this current House passed version of ENDA, you are negatively impacting and affecting its legislative history . This in turn will actualy make it more difficult to enact and pass stand alone transgender protected legislation in the near future, and that's assuming a more LGBT freindly Congress and President.
Further, "Political Reality" :the transgender community is very tiny, as compared to that of the LGB community , or other Civil Rights protected minorites like Women or POC. Transgendered people will never have the numbers, or political clout, influence and financial resources to give a powerful clarion voice to their needs and concerns in the Halls of Congress and/or the State Legislatures to acquire and secure their civil and human rights.Because of this imapairment, transgendered people must form coalitions, or incorporat with enlightened straight and LGB groups. Point of fact,until recently, they actually thought they had made some allies and coalitions with the likes of HRC and the Democratic Party. Well, judging from some of your comments and their "polticaly real" behavior ,we all know that they were WRONG! Just as WRONG as the false concept of "incremetalism"!
Given, the above it will taks a very,very long time for an enlightened culture, society and legislative body to enact any civil and human rights legislation to cover transgendred people as protected class. And that my friends I beleive is THE POLITICAL REALITY!
Given my racial background, I am deeply thankful that civil rights leaders didn't delay seeking protections based on race until sexual orientation protections could be won - it wouldn't have helped me at all if I could be discriminated against both for being gay and Asian, rather than just the gay part! Much better to have that partial protection for all of us based on race. And now, it is against the backdrop of the racial civil rights movement that our sexual orientation civil rights movement can be fought. I suspect that the same will ultimately be true of the gender identity movement after us. To say that the two have to take place at the same time is spurious, and utterly unfair to those who would be forced to "wait" when they can be protected this decade.
Second, the entire discussion on ENDA has seen one side dishonestly speaking of "leaving no one behind" when in fact they have been quite willing to leave millions behind. A quarter of the workforce is left out of the "inclusive" version of ENDA because they work for a small business. Most employees at non-profits are also left out of even the "inclusive" version of ENDA.
It is this dishonesty that is most appalling. Barney Frank has the decency to admit he would like a more comprehensive and extensive version of ENDA but is responding to political realities. The infantile proponents of other position pick and choose what people are worthy of inclusion and declare a bill "inclusive" because it covers their favored groups even though others are not. SHAME.
To do so when the organization has not only started calling themselves "The Task Force" on all their publications, changed their URL to TheTaskForce.org and (unlike other national lgbt civil rigts organiztions) walked the talk - is delusional.
Sounds like a case of "Mad Franny Disease".
Frances is Hillary’s self appointed altar boy; he’s keen on her in spite of DOMA and DADT and NAFTA and her unwavering support for the invasion of Iraq that’s produced a genocidal level of civilian deaths. He’s as happy with her as Pat Robertson, Santorum, Brownback, Billy Graham and Rupert Murdoch, who likewise have good reason to admire her right wing politics. As does Wal-Mart. As do the criminals who Bill Clinton pardoned and who 'donate' to her campaign.
Frances adores Clinton precisely because her version of ‘incrementalism’ is as bad as Franks, Pelosi’s, Feinstein’s and the rest all that grubby crowd. They all do the two party two step, except in their case its one step left and five steps right.
Sometimes the supporters of Republicans and Democrats are clueless - when they go all out to campaign for Obama, Giuliani, Clinton or whoever they just seem to leave their brains at home. They futilely project what they want and hope for onto frauds who don't give a damn about GLBT folk. All these candidates want is votes and money and they’ll say anything or do anything short of embracing full equality, ending the war or repealing NAFTA to get them.
When Democrats Frank and Pelosi, joined by their Republicans cousins across the aisle rammed through their toothless version of ENDA they woke up a lot of people to the inherent folly of supporting either of the twin parties.
The 366 organizations and thousands of activists supporting UnitedENDA are now hard at work to reintroduce an ENDA that will protect us in court and hope that even those with self destructive illusions about Republican and Democrats will join the fight. The same goes for the Hate Crimes Bill, now endangered in Pelosi’s House of Greed.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for Frances to repudiate the Democratic/Republican fake version of ENDA. Unless of course Hillary does, but don't hold you breath about that either. When all this fake ENDA business started I predicted that Frances would move even further to the right and I was correct, but I underestimated the speed of his hysterical desire to go home to his log cabin.
Other symptoms? Hallucinations. You're hallucinating if you sincerely believe that HRC, which, for the record, I hate for other reasons, "has now fully embraced the notion that the exclusion of transgendered and gender-variant people from civil rights legislation represents ‘progress'." Or that the Times and Post agree.
The millions of gay men and lesbians in the 31 states who have no job protections UNLIKE virtually ALL of the talking heads for ENDA Insane, including Mara Kiesling and Matt We Can't Be Bothered To Include Transgenders In the Name of the Group That Pays Me Foreman might disagree.
Get help Ms. Park before what's left of your brain is entirely eaten away.