Political expectations were high at the start of the year. With Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, after more than a decade under Republican majorities, now was the time to move the GLBT legislative agenda forward. But the year ended with little to show and growing frustration, even bitterness, within the community.
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Barney Frank, photo by Rex Wockner.
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The game plan was to pass hate crimes legislation in early spring, expanding coverage to include sexual orientation and gender identity. And when the political sky didn't fall, the freshman Democratic congressmen would be inoculated to vote for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act ( ENDA ) later in the year.
ENDA didn't get rolling in the House until after Labor Day, with a hearing Sept. 5. All hell broke loose a few weeks later when openly gay Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., floated a trial balloon to remove protection for gender identity. Transgender advocates had fought long and hard to gain that inclusion.
Strong opposition from the GLBT community to Frank's proposal seemed to catch the Democratic leadership by surprise, forcing them to reconsider. A scheduled vote on the measure was delayed several times. The trans-inclusive coalition that came to be known as United ENDA grew to more than three hundred state and national community organizations.
But in the end, Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided that enough Democrats were fearful of voting for trans-inclusive legislation that a stripped down bill was moved through committee and on to the floor of the House. It passed the more limited measure Nov. 7 by a vote of 235 to 184.
Seven northeastern liberal Democrats voted against it because it did not include trans protection; 25 more conservative and Southern Democrats voted against it because it was too pro-gay. Again, the margin for victory was supplied by 35 Republicans.
The one judicial nominee gays and liberals zeroed in on was Leslie Southwick, who was nominated to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, covering Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Among the decisions he made while sitting on the Mississippi Supreme Court were ones opponents called racist and homophobic.
But Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., joined all of the Republicans to keep Southwick's nomination from being bottled up in the Senate Judiciary Committee. And when it reached the floor Oct. 24, the Democrats could muster only 35 of the necessary 41 votes to maintain a filibuster.
The nomination of James Holsinger to be Surgeon General of the United States raised hackles for the antigay tract he had written for a committee considering the role of homosexuals within the United Methodist Church.
He faced tough questioning at a confirmation hearing on July 12, and his nomination appeared to be in limbo. Just before Thanksgiving, when rumors started to circulate that President Bush might make 'recess appointments' while the Senate was away for the holiday, including Holsinger, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid ( Nevada ) pulled a parliamentary trick to technically keep the Senate in session and prevent any recess appointments being made.
