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End workplace discrimination

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By AARON NORTON

Special To The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 26, 2009

I am a young American who, among other things, is both gay and Republican. Like 25 to 30 percent of gay and lesbian Americans, I have voted almost exclusively for Republican candidates for the last 10 years because I believe in limited government, individual rights, personal liberty, individual responsibility, a strong national defense, a free market economy, fiscal responsibility and lower taxes.

As a loyal conservative, I am calling upon my fellow Republicans to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill in Congress that would prohibit discrimination against employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. ENDA offers Republicans an opportunity to adhere to our party's rich tradition of opposing discrimination.

If we continue to accept the legality of discrimination against hard-working Americans based solely on their sexual orientation or gender identity, can we truly say that government defends our rights to the extent that we are free to pursue economic prosperity? And what better time to support employment non-discrimination than during a time of economic recession - when job retention is all the more essential to Americans?

The fight for equality is written into our Republican DNA. Republicans advocated for abolition of slavery in the 1860s. The "founder" of the American women's rights movement, Susan B. Anthony, was a Republican. Republican senators enabled the passage of women's suffrage in 1920, and a Republican president appointed the first woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 wouldn't have passed without GOP support in the Senate, and the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by a Republican president. All of these issues are different than the struggle for gay rights, but they share a common theme of fairness and equality.

The last century's greatest Republican president understood that gay people deserve basic fairness. In 1978, two years before his election as president, Ronald Reagan played a critical role in defeating the Briggs Initiative, a proposition that would have prohibited gay and lesbian people from teaching in California public schools.

Rank-and-file Republicans support basic fairness for gay and lesbian people. In 2007, a national survey conducted by Tony Fabrizio, the pollster on Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign, found that 77 percent of Republicans did not believe that employers should have the right to fire someone because of his sexual orientation.

We cannot afford to stand on the wrong side of history. We must instead remain true to our heritage, planting our feet firmly in our historical roots on the side of fairness and freedom. Now is the time for passing ENDA.

Aaron Norton is a practicing psychotherapist and vice president of the Tampa Bay chapter of Log Cabin Republicans.

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