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Wayne Besen
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The Senate today voted 25-23 to approve a gay rights bill and ended the debate over legislation that emerged in Washington the same year singer Anita Bryant began her "Save Our Children" crusade against such protections.
The bill would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in housing, lending and employment. Twenty four of 26 Democrats were joined by one Republican and approved the bill with a one-vote majority.
Friday afternoon by cell phone, Gov. Christine Gregoire told Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, she plans to sign the bill Tuesday morning.
7 Comments:
Good news, but it's still pathetic that they're just getting a basic civil rights bill in WA 37 YEARS after Stonewall!! And it only passed by TWO votes.
posted by Anonymous, at
1/27/2006 10:35 PM
Thank GOD!!
It's about time! I agree it's dreadful to take so long to get such basic legal protections, but for whatever reason, that is the (snail's) pace of civil rights movements in America. Thank goodness people's basic survival (jobs to support oneself and homes to live in) will at least have some legal recourse if they run into that kind of discrimination in WA state. And right on the heels of Maine! We *are* making progress! If only it could progress faster. But let's not fail to appreciate how important today's news is.
Gay civil rights laws do nothing and are, practically speaking, useless. If a bigoted employer finds out that a worker is gay, the employee is simply told something like, "We're eliminating the position".
However, we still have reason to be happy! The passage of any piece of pro-gay legislation is a indicator of the decreasing level of homophobia in the state. Just my two-cents.
posted by Anonymous, at
1/28/2006 9:48 AM
I love Washington, hope NYC would become another nice community soon...
Its still a national disgrace to think that in this country basic civil rights denied gay people are grudgingly granted. If the democratic party were genuinely interested in equality, it would have done far more at the federal level. They are partly responsible for the pariah nation status we've earned on equality issues. Just take a look at how far and progressive western Europe and Canada have become and we're languishing more than we should have to. The majority of our politicians are no damn good, nothing but self-serving, and do anything only when it politically and conveniently expedient when it suits them and downright corrupt. They're not giving us anything, what we're getting is what we should have had without asking or demanding.
