Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is aiming to push a measure through the U.S. House of Representatives that would place a federal ban on job discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender workers. More than half of U.S. states allow discrimination based on at least one of these markers.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) of 2007 is stuck in the House Education and Labor Committee, but Frank said he is confident that it will make it through the chamber, despite the failures of very similar bills in the past.
But the real test will come if it reaches the sharply divided Senate, where legislators yield filibuster powers and may not be afraid to use them.
"The problem with the Senate is, the way things have evolved, I don't know if the Republicans are going to filibuster it," Frank, who is openly gay, told the Daily. "If they filibuster it, we might have trouble getting 60 votes [to override the filibuster]."
The bill, introduced by Frank in April, would forbid employers from using sexual orientation or gender identity as the basis for hiring, firing and salary decisions. "It's a fundamental principle of fairness," Frank said.
Under the legislation, many religious institutions and the armed forces would be immune.
Currently, the bill has strong support in the House, with 171 co-sponsors, according to the Library of Congress.
But even so, some legislators have raised concerns that might foreshadow stronger opposition in the Senate.
On Sept. 5, the bill was the subject of an Education and Labor Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions hearing. Alexa Marrero, a spokesperson for Republicans on the Education and Labor Committee, said that some representatives at the hearing were troubled by aspects of the proposal.
While past versions of the bill included blanket immunity for religious groups, Marrero said that the current language is less clear, which could mean that employers would have to resort to the court system to determine the legislation's intent.
"There's some ambiguity in the language," she said. "There's a great deal of concern that it would lead to new litigation."
The language of the bill does provide several very specific exemptions. For example, it says that it "shall not apply to any of the employment practices of a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society which has as its primary purpose religious ritual or worship or the teaching or spreading of religious doctrine or belief."
It also gives further exemptions to groups and positions where employees are "teaching or spreading religious doctrine or belief."
Marrero said that the Republicans on the committee have not yet reached a consensus on the bill, since it has thus far only gone through one subcommittee hearing. "There's been a limited amount of opportunity to consider the bill," she said.
If passed, the law would cause some changes in Massachusetts, but because of legislation already passed on the state level, the effect would not be as dramatic as in other states. Currently, Massachusetts law protects sexual orientation but not gender identity, and so would be expanded by a federal blanket law.
The law has received an enthusiastic response from the Tufts LGBT community, many of whose members come from other states.
"This is the most important LGBT human rights legislation to ever come up in Congress," LGBT Center Director Dona Yarbrough said. "It is shameful that in many states, gay people and other sexual minorities can be fired solely on the basis of their sexual orientation."
So far, the main opposition to the bill has come from religious and conservative groups.
On the Tufts campus, though, these groups do not seem to be concerned by the proposal.
"We have not discussed the bill or any action that would be taken for or against it," junior and Tufts Republicans President Dan Hartman said.
And on a personal level, Hartman said he supports the measure.
"It is wrong for businesses to consider sexual orientation when making hiring decisions," he said.
Senior Ryan Coughlin, president of the Catholic Community at Tufts, said that his group has not discussed the legislation either.
"Personally, I would like very much for the ban to pass," he said.
Statistics indicate that he is hardly alone. A 2006 Gallup Poll, for example, showed that 89 percent of respondents supported equal employment opportunities for the LGBT community.
Employers are also getting the hint. According to CNN, as of last year, more than 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies had rules forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Yarbrough said that this evidence is conclusive.
"Every survey I have seen indicates that a majority of Americans agree that people shouldn't be fired for their sexual orientation," she said. "So there is no democratic reason why the ban shouldn't pass."
Rob Silverblatt contributed reporting to this article.
