ENDA

Hobby Lobby GoalPat Begley [click to enlarge]"If a private company can take its own religious beliefs and say you can't have access to certain health care, it's a hop, skip and a jump to an interpretation that a private company could have religious beliefs that LGBT people are not equal or somehow go against their beliefs and therefore fire them."-- National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) ExecutiveDirector Rea Carey,

Shenna Bellows has a record of fighting for equality. Susan Collins has a record of dragging her feet and compromising away basic rights for peopleI imagine that immigration activists must stay awake late into the night from time to time wondering what gay activists did that they didn't to get such incredible treatment for their platform. And advocates for economic equality must be ready to commit suicide over the same question.

The Democratic Party prides itself on being a big tent so the answer is both yes and no. Mainstream FDR progressives are very serious about equality-- like the Pennsylvania state Senator, DaylinLeach, in the video above. Confused conservatives who, for whatever reason, stumbled into the wrong party are not. When I was growing up, my grandfather, a dedicated Socialist, told me to never trust the Democrats.

It takes more to earn a Blue America endorsement than just the likelihood of voting right. We like to get to know the candidates and try too get behind the rhetoric. We look at past behavior of course but we also try to figure out two intangibles: character and leadership.

Thursday there were 3 roll calls in the Senate on ending employment discrimination against gays and lesbians. Short version: it passed and now faces a hostile reception from House Republican leadership. The slightly longer version:The first bill up was an amendment by Pennsylvania conservative Pat Toomey allowing employers to use "religion" as an excuse to discriminate.

Yesterday we looked at the lead-up to last night's historic Senate vote for ENDA. The anti-gay filibuster was shut down 61-30, every Democrat plus 7 Republicans voting for equality.

This hypocritical old queen isn't changing his mind on ENDAThis evening, the Senate will once again take up ENDA, the bill that would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. I say "once again," because the Senate tried to pass this once before-- September 10, 1996.