HRC Blog

Five years after it was first proposed, a bill prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and expression was once again the subject of a legislative hearing in Connecticut. HB 6599, “An Act Concerning Discrimination,” would add “gender identity or expression” to Connecticut’s antidiscrimination statute, thus protecting transgender people from discrimination in employment, education, housing, public accommodations and credit.

US News & World Report yesterday published two pieces on DOMA’s constitutionality (or lack thereof)… one from HRC's President Joe Solmonese and the other from the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins. Both are available at www.usnews.com/doma. Here’s a sampling of what Joe wrote in "The Defense of Marriage Act Is Unconstitutional Discrimination":

This morning, clergy and faith leaders from around the state of Maryland met in Annapolis to give religious backing to two key bills, the Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Act (HB 235) and the Civil Marriage Protection Act (SB 116), both of which are seeing action this week in the Maryland House of Delegates. Faith leaders are now on their way to meet with members of the Maryland House of Delegates to talk about why their faith compels them to support equality and to urge Delegates to also do the same.

Not only are we working in Hawaii to pass the Civil Unions legislation (check!), we are also mobilizing our members to support HB 546, a bill banning employment discrimination against transgender individuals. Hawaii statute already includes gender identity protections in housing and public accommodations, but only through court and administrative rulings does it also apply to employment discrimination. This bill would codify those protections.

For the last month, I’ve been working with Equality Maryland to bolster the great work they’ve been doing to pass gender identity non-discrimination legislation and marriage equality. This week, the State Senate is set to vote on the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, or, SB 116. We need at least 24 votes to pass marriage equality and right now, 24 State Senators have committed their support.