Dec 28, 2007  | COMMENTS     

Passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) has long been at the top of gay activists’ wish lists. The bill has been around in one form or another since the 1970s and after the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, many were optimistic it would finally pass.

But the excitement gave way to a divisive fight over transgender rights this year, pitting some activists against gay Rep. Barney Frank and others who supported the gay-only version when it became clear there were not enough votes to pass the trans-inclusive version.

Many trans activists felt abandoned and some even picketed the annual Human Rights Campaign National Dinner. Others argued that a successful House vote — even with a White House veto threatened and looming — would be historic and bode well for more expansive legislation in the future.

The ENDA timeline below shows how the bill has progressed since 1974.

March 14, 1974 — Reps. Bella Abzug (D-N.Y.) and Ed Koch (D-N.Y.) introduce H.R. 14752, dubbed the “gay rights bill” or “Equality Act of 1974,” but it fails to make it out of committee. It proposes that new categories of sex, sexual orientation and marital status be added to the 1964 civil rights act. It is forwarded to the civil rights subcommittee, part of the Judiciary Committee, but because the committee is in the throes of impeachment hearings, the bill is seen as a long shot. Abzug’s version bars anti-gay discrimination in public accommodations and housing, but not transgender protections, thus making it further reaching than its modern counterpart.

1975 — Abzug introduces the Civil Rights Amendment of 1975, which would add “affectional or sexual preference” to existing civil rights laws, separating sex and marital status from sexual orientation.

1994 — The modern version, now called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, is introduced with gay-only protection without public accommodations or housing provisions. The Senate Labor & Human Resources Committee holds the first hearings on ENDA. It fails to make it out of committee as does a 1995 version.

Sept. 10, 1996 — The Senate votes on ENDA without a gender identity provision. It loses by one vote, 49 to 50. The House doesn’t vote on the bill. The near victory came at a high price. With the consent of national gay advocacy groups, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), the lead sponsor of ENDA, struck a deal with Senate Republican leaders that activists say they hope will never again be necessary. GOP leaders said they would allow ENDA to come up for a vote only if Kennedy and his Democratic allies agreed to end a filibuster blocking a vote on the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act. Known as DOMA, that legislation sought for the first time to define marriage under federal law as a union only between a man and a woman. On the same day the Senate narrowly defeated ENDA, it passed DOMA by a vote of 85 to 14. The disappointment over the close defeat of ENDA and the approval of DOMA was heightened by what ENDA supporters view as a quirk of fate that prevented the Senate from passing the gay rights measure. Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.), who was expected to vote for ENDA, sent word that he had to rush to Arkansas to assist his son, who was undergoing cancer surgery, and could not be present in the Senate for the vote. ENDA languishes in the ensuing years.

1997 — Another version of ENDA is introduced with hearings held by the Senate Labor & Human Resources Committee. This version, also without a trans provision, fails to make it out of committee.

March 31, 1998 — Abzug dies.

1998 — President Bill Clinton issues an executive order prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in much of the federal workplace. Later in the year, the House rejects an amendment that would have prohibited use of federal funds to enforce Clinton’s order.

1999 — The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force becomes the first gay civil rights organization to stop work on ENDA because of its lack of a trans provision. ENDA re-introduced, again without trans protections, fails to make it out of committee.

MAY 2001 — Democrats win back control of the Senate by one vote. During the next year and a half, Democrats have the ability to bring up ENDA and other gay rights measures to the Senate floor for a vote but don’t. In retrospect, Elizabeth Birch, then-director of HRC, and Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), then ...