I'm not your stepping stone

Nancy Pelosi, Frank Barney and others rapped rhapsodic about the ENDA bill on the House floor today, before it was passed, as expected. And it lacked the historic protections for transgender employees. As expected.

Barney, one of two openly gay members of Congress, railed against some of the Republicans who challenged the bill over concerns it would lead to gay marriage. Or abortions. Or something. Barney decided to plead with the gay rights haters on a personal level.

Mr. Speaker, we say here that we don’t take things personally, and usually that’s true. Members, Mr. Speaker, will have to forgive me — I take it personally. 35 years ago, I filed a bill that tried to get rid of discrimination based on sexual orientation. As we sit here today, there are millions of Americans in states where this is not the law. By the way, 19 states have such a law. In no case has it led to that decision. The Massachusetts law passed in 1989, that did not lead to the decision in 2004, unrelated. But here’s the deal: I used to be someone subject to this prejudice. And through luck, circumstance, I got to be a big shot. I’m now above that prejudice. But I feel an obligation, to 15-year-olds dreading to go to school because of the torments, to people they’ll lose their job in a gas station if someone finds out who they love. I feel an obligation to use the status I have been lucky enough to get, to help them.

But Barney, what about all of the T's in LGBT?

Politics happened, of course. Frank and Pelosi deemed it more important to pass a bill with fewer protections than to put forth an exhaustive and highly symbolic bill with zilch chance of being passed. It's called incremental progress, baby steps toward what everyone wants: safeguards from unmerited discrimination.

Members of United ENDA have cried foul. Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, John Newsome compared the watered down ENDA bill to Bill Clinton's about face in the mid-90s, when he abandoned the idea of allowing gays into the military and instead adopted a 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy that, well, pissed A LOT of people off.

And though it would be, like, totally radical to actually pass a bill with the transgender protections in it, I have to go with Frank here. This isn't 'don't ask.' No one has abandoned the LGBT community here. In fact, they swallowed their pride to pass a bill that has a chance of making a difference.

Symbolism and inclusiveness and unity have a place in this fight. But so does real change. And until one can be workably reconciled with the other, it's the job of politicians to do what they can with what they can.