HomoQuotable - Shannon Minter

"It is one thing to pass laws that don't cover groups that haven't really organized or come into public consciousness yet -- of course that is going to happen. But it is something else to deliberately cut out another, more politically vulnerable group that is asking to be included and just as much in need of protection just to get your rights more quickly. Seriously, that is not good karma! It does not surprise me that you are hearing from gay people who just want a gay rights law now, and who probably don't feel much kinship or alliance with trans people (which is a bit sad given how interlinked our histories have been). But I bet that many of them would feel differently if they truly understood the whole picture -- that a gay-only bill will actually harm transgender people, that any delay in passing a viable bill that includes everyone likely will not even be that significant in this case, and that other [non-gay] groups have stood by us [gays] even when it meant their own protections were delayed." - Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center For Lesbian Rights, in an email to Rex Wockner.

Check out Wockner's analysis of the last week of ENDA turmoil. It begins: "If you live under a rock, you may not yet have noticed the meltdown taking place nationally in the "LGBT" rights movement the past few days."
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