ENDA is Justice Long Overdue

by Liz Seaton, Director of Projects and Managing Attorney, National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR)

http://nclrights.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/enda-is-justice-long-overdue/

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), (HR 3017) and (S 1584), is federal legislation intended to prohibit discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. This legislation, now pending in both chambers of Congress, is both critically needed and long overdue.

Recently, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on ENDA (pictures, testimony, and video are available here). The hearing featured witnesses who provided compelling testimony about the incidence and severity of discrimination, about the scope of the measure and its carefully drafted provisions, about the bill's relationship to existing federal law, the workplace non-discrimination policies in corporate America, and about the religious exemption in the bill.