HRC Blog

Frustrated with the pace of progress? Today we're launching a grassroots campaign to urge action on an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act and repeal of the discriminatory "Don't ask, Don't Tell" law. LGBT people and our allies can make a real difference by making our voices heard face-to-face and in the districts where we live.

On July 8th, five members of the HRC Utah Steering Committee and two members of the Utah Log Cabin Republicans had an in-district meeting in Salt Lake City with Senator Robert F. Bennett. Though Bennett was defeated at his party's convetion by a Tea Party candidate, he will serve out his term through January -- and this window of time may provide the three-term Senator an opportunity to go down on the right side of history.

Members of the New Orleans Political Action and Steering Committees recently had the opportunity to meet with our 2nd Congressional District Rep. Joseph Cao. We thanked him for his support and co-sponsorship of Hate Crimes legislation that passed last year, discussed the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), which he also co-sponsored, and asked for his support and co-sponsorship of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). He was very well informed and educated on all of our issues. He gets discrimination.

In Orlando, Florida last week, thousands of LGBT people from around the world descended on Disney World and participated in a week-long series of LGBT activities known as “Gay Days.” HRC’s field team partnered with volunteers from HRC’s outstanding Orlando Steering Committee to staff HRC tables at the Gay Days Expo.

Earlier this week, just days after terminating a decades-long membership in the respected civil rights coalition the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the U.S. Conference of [Roman] Catholic Bishops made public a letter to Capitol Hill opposing, for the first time, basic workplace protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. In 2007, the last time Congress considered the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the Conference remained neutral on the bill as a whole, but sent a letter to the House Education and Labor Committee specifically praising the bill’s religious exemption as “an indispensable protection for the free exercise rights of religious organizations.” This week, they abandoned that position, characterizing the religious exemption as insufficient and arguing that the bill serves only to “legally affirm and specially protect” sexual conduct outside of marriage and threatens their traditional understanding of marriage.