Senate panel hears ENDA testimony
GOP senators, trans witnesses absent from hearing
By CHRIS JOHNSON, Washington Blade | Nov 5 2009, 7:17 PM
http://www.sovo.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=27967A Senate hearing Thursday for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act alternated between tales of discrimination and wrangling over the bill's exemptions for religious groups.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee heard testimony on the bill that would bar job bias throughout the country against LGBT people in the workforce. It was the first Senate hearing on ENDA since 2002.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the sponsor of the legislation in the Senate, said during the hearing that ENDA is necessary to ensure equal opportunity for all Americans in the workforce.
"We are on the path to one of those struggles for human progress, for a struggle to have full equality under the law — full equal opportunity," he said. "There can never be equal opportunity as long we do not have equal opportunity for employment. Discrimination is simply wrong."
also
Breaking news: Senate holds first-ever hearing on inclusive ENDA
Published 11/05/2009
by Lisa Keen
http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=4325Restrooms and religion arose as the only objections Thursday during the Senate's first hearing on the inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And the testimony from the Obama administration struck an unusually ironic note just two days after Maine voters rejected an equal marriage law there.
The 2009 version of ENDA is different from a 2002 version that also received a Senate hearing in that it prohibits discrimination based on both sexual orientation or gender identity.
