Roll Call is reporting that House Democrats have started a whip count for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the legislation would make it illegal for private employers with more than 15 employees to fire, refuse to hire, or fail to promote employees simply based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Religious organizations and non-profit membership-only clubs are exempt from the bill.

The House cleared a version of the legislation in 2007 (that did not include protections for transgendered people) with a wide margin padded by support from 35 Republicans, but the bill died in the Senate. The current House bill, which does include gender protections, has 199 co-sponsors (including 6 Republicans), the Senate version — introduced by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) — has attracted 45 co-sponsors (42 are Democrats, 2 independents, and the 2 Republicans Senators from Maine):

This time, Democratic leaders are committed to pursuing a discrimination ban that includes transgender people, lawmakers and staff said. And they believe that rapidly shifting politics surrounding gay rights, nudged along on the transgender issue by an aggressive lobbying campaign by advocates, will help them win the day. But the push faces resistance from a so-far-unknown number of Democrats, mostly from rural, socially conservative districts. Many of these lawmakers are eager to avoid what they consider a tough vote — pitting a sizable chunk of their constituency against base voters and wealthy donors — in an already challenging re-election environment.

The fact that the measure passed the House last Congress without the transgender provision “helps our Members understand that this is not toxic, because nobody that I know of lost any race because of it,” Frank said. “Secondly, we have done some education on the transgender issue, which we hadn’t done before.” Two years ago, he said, the matter was “too new.”

Proponents believe that ENDA has enough votes to pass in the House, but could run into trouble if Republicans introduce a motion to recommit that does not include protections for transgendered people. That would send the Democrats’ bill back to committee. DC Agenda reports that “supporters in the Senate don’t appear to have the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster,” however. “With the 2010 congressional elections fast approaching, only two GOP senators have so far committed to vote for ENDA, making it essential for supporters to line up most of the 16 uncommitted Democrats to secure the bill’s passage in the Senate.”

During her weekly press conference yesterday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the vote in the House will happen “soon” after Education and Labor reports the bill out of committee. “I believe that it will be soon, and as soon as they are ready, Leader Hoyer and I agreed that it will come to the floor. So, I think it will be pretty soon,” she said.

For many, “soon” cannot come soon enough. Congresswoman Bella Abzug (D-NY) first introduced a nondiscrimination bill that included employment protection based on sexual orientation in 1974. At that time, ENDA was seen as “an exotic cause.” Nearly two decades later, in 1996, it looked like a version of ENDA that did not include gender protections was set to pass Congress, but instead, it suffered “a nail-biter 49-50 defeat” in the Senate.

Currently, 12 states and the District of Columbia have policies to protect against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, while nine states protect sexual orientation but exclude gender identity. At least 305 large corporations are also voluntarily providing equal rights and benefits to LGBT employees.

Late last night, President Obama issued a memorandum instructing the Department of Health and Human Services to develop regulations requiring all hospitals that receive federal Medicare and Medicaid funding to end discrimination in hospital visitation.

The new rules will stipulate that all patients have the right to designate people who can visit and consult with them during medical emergencies and that those individuals have the same rights that immediate family members now enjoy. Hospitals may also “not deny visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability” and will have to honor the visitation rights of “individuals designated by legally valid advance directives (such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies).”

“There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital,” Obama wrote in the memo to HHS. “In these hours of need and moments of pain and anxiety, all of us would hope to have a hand to hold, a shoulder on which to lean — a loved one to be there for us, as we would be there for them”:

Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend. Members of religious orders are sometimes unable to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions on their behalf. Also uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.

For all of these Americans, the failure to have their wishes respected concerning who may visit them or make medical decisions on their behalf has real [c]onsequences. It means that doctors and nurses do not always have the best information about patients’ medications and medical histories and that friends and certain family members are unable to serve as intermediaries to help communicate patients’ needs. It means that a stressful and at times terrifying experience for patients is senselessly compounded by indignity and unfairness. And it means that all too often, people are made to suffer or even to pass away alone, denied the comfort of companionship in their final moments while a loved one is left worrying and pacing down the hall.

Currently, several states, including California, Delaware, Nebraska and Minnesota, and North Carolina allow patients to designate visitors, but the new rules “could require substantive changes to the visitation policies of hospitals in at least twenty-five states whose laws do not currently require the extension of visitation rights.”

Since Obama’s memo will have no immediate effect, “the rule-making process could be a lengthy one, requiring the creation and publication of new proposals, a period for public comment and additional approvals,” Box Turtle Bulletin notes. “The weakness of this process is that it could be overturned by a future administration, but that overturning would also have to undergo the same lengthy process — creation and publication of a new set of regulations, public comment period, etc. While it is not as immediate as an Executive Order, it is much more robust and durable.”

The memo also instructs HHS to provide additional recommendations on what can be done “to address hospital visitation, medical decisionmaking, or other health care issues that affect LGBT patients and their families.”