The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins has launched a new daily radio show on American Family Association radio, and Jeremy Hooper is tracking it closely. On the second episode Tuesday, Perkins addressed a listener’s question about nondiscrimination protections, asserting that the existing protections for people of faith are fine, but creating protections for LGBT people would be problematic:

PERKINS: Actually, religion is a protected class, So right now under existing law, you can’t use that as a component to discriminate against individuals. [...]

This administration — the Obama administration — wants to push the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. What is that? It sounds nice. But it is actually providing special protections to people — employment protections and benefits — based upon their sexual behavior. So let’s say an employer at a day care, an elementary school, or a church does not want to hire someone who is openly engaged in homosexual behavior. They would be forced to either defend themselves in their decision or could suffer legal consequences as a result.

Listen to it:

As Hooper points out, Perkins is peddling a significant double standard. He voices no objection to the protections his Christian faith already enjoys, yet claims that protections for LGBT people would be “special” and violate Christians so-called “religious freedom.” As conservatives do, he only referred to “homosexual behavior,” erasing gays and lesbians and framing their identities as a choice. But not only are same-sex orientations (or non-conforming gender identities, which ENDA also would protect) not chosen, but religious beliefs are. So if Perkins argument is that people should not be protected based on their lifestyle choices, by his own logic religion should not be a protected class.

Of course, Perkins motivations are not rooted in logic, but in animus against LGBT people and an expectation that one group of people enjoy a superior status in society over another.

WASHINGTON, DC — Republicans have obstructed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) for years, preventing a federal law from prohibiting discrimination against LGBT employees. On Thursday, Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH) told ThinkProgress that he would be in favor of preventing employment discrimination, if there is a way to “not mess up many states’ employment laws” in the process.

STIVERS: I’m somebody that believes in nondiscrimination [...] I’m not familiar with that issue but none of us are for discrimination. The key is how you work it, how you do with it, and what you do to states laws like employment at will. You have to be careful to not mess up many states’ employment laws by doing that. There might be a way to do it. I’m certainly not for discrimination so there might be a way to get there.

Watch it:

The current patchwork of state laws leaves more than half of Americans vulnerable to anti-LGBT discrimination. Employers in 29 states can fire workers for being gay or lesbian, and a person can be fired for being transgender in 34 states. But ENDA has stalled because Stivers’ Republican colleagues insist that firing someone for sexual orientation should be perfectly legal.

WASHINGTON, DC — Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) claimed Thursday that he still supports extending nondiscrimination protections, but it’s unclear who in the LGBT community he’s willing to protect.

ThinkProgress spoke with the former Republican vice presidential candidate on Capitol Hill about the prospects for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that makes it illegal to discriminate against workers because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The legislation has been mired in Congress for decades because of Republican opposition, though Ryan voted for a weaker version of the bill in 2007 that only protected sexual orientation.

Ryan reiterated his support for ENDA on Thursday, but was at a loss when trying to explain why most of his Republican colleagues don’t support the legislation. “I don’t know the answer to the question,” said the Wisconsin congressman.

KEYES: One of the things that might be coming up is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

RYAN: Oh, ENDA. I voted for that before.

KEYES: Do you think that the GOP should embrace this?

RYAN: My position is very clear on ENDA.

KEYES: Why do you think the Republican Party is not coalescing around it?

RYAN: I think it’s just, there are Republicans who support ENDA. I was one of them. I don’t know the answer to the question.

Watch it:

Unfortunately, Ryan’s position is not “very clear on ENDA.” When he was tapped as Mitt Romney’s running mate, the Log Cabin Republicans lauded his 2007 vote for the bill, his only pro-LGBT vote ever. However, Ryan personally lobbied its sponsor, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), to strip transgender protections from that version of the bill, a move that divided the LGBT community. Since then, every version of ENDA proposed by Democrats has included both sexual orientation and gender identity. Ryan refused to clarify his position during the campaign — most likely because of Romney’s opposition — and his position on a trans-inclusive bill remains muddled.

It’s true that some Republicans support ENDA, but over 80 percent of Republicans opposed even that trans-exclusive bill in 2007, and the House hasn’t considered any version since. House Speaker John Boehner “hasn’t thought much” about advancing ENDA in the House, where only five Republicans co-sponsored its most recent version. Though Senate Democrats held a hearing on the bill last June, including the chamber’s first ever trans-identified witness, a Republican filibuster would likely keep it from passing. Several GOP congressmen have defended their opposition by explaining that being gay is a “choice” or mistakenly believing ENDA is already law.

Not only is that not true, but there are still 29 states where it’s legal to fire someone for being gay, and 34 where it’s legal to fire someone just for being trans. According to a recent survey, 9 in 10 transgender Americans have experienced workplace harassment.

Though Ryan’s continued support for at least a trans-exclusive ENDA is notable, his overall record on LGBT rights remains underwhelming at best.

New Hampshire state Rep-elect Stacie Laughton (D). (Photo credit: William Wrobel, Nashua Telegraph.)

It’s fair to say that the 2012 elections were a big victory for the LGBT community, in terms of both issues and candidates, but that is much more true for the LGB than it is the T. Certainly the transgender community can benefit from same-sex marriage laws; some states will recognize their gender identity and others won’t, confusing who they can legally marry based on their identity documentation. Ideally, lawmakers who claim to be allies will also support transgender issues, but there is no guarantee. Vice President Joe Biden told a constituent recently that transgender justice is the “civil rights issue of our time,” but progress can only be made with visibility.

One important victory took place this week in New Hampshire: the state elected its first openly transgender lawmaker. Stacie Laughton (D) easily beat two Republican candidates for an open seat in Ward 4. She told the Nashua Telegraph that she believes the LGBT community “will hopefully be inspired,” but in her campaign she also advocated for the homeless, people with disabilities, and strengthening public schools. A seat in the huge New Hampshire House of Representatives is not the highest profile position, but Laughton’s election is a notable milestone for trans visibility.

The primary struggle facing trans people remains discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. The federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) has languished in Congress for decades, and with Republicans maintaining control of the House, its status is not likely to change. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is the perfect example of a Republican who opposed ENDA specifically because it included transgender protections. President Obama could still issue an executive order protecting employees of federal contractors, but he has been reluctant to do so because it’s not a permanent solution. In 34 states, a person can still be legally fired just for being transgender. For example, though New York and Maryland have both advanced same-sex marriage, gender identity protections (bills known as GENDA and GIADA, respectively) struggle to advance.

Having a basic understanding of transgender identities continues to be a huge obstacle in discussing these issues. In Washington state, which also just passed marriage equality, controversy is erupting over a supposed “incident” where a 17-year-old girl saw a transgender woman changing in the locker room at Evergreen College. Even ABC News offensively felt the need to explain that this transgender student “identifies as a woman but has male genitalia.” It’s become a story because the Alliance Defending Freedom has threatened the college with ambiguous legal action, all because of the visibility of a person’s genitals in a space designated for changing clothes. Evergreen, admirably, is standing by its nondiscrimination protections, pointing out that there are privacy curtains available — for hiding one’s body or one’s eyes, as the need may arise. The controversy is a simple example of the everyday stigmatization trans people experience and how that stigma is used to justify discrimination.

Kerry Eleveld argues this week that President Obama will be a “better progressive” in his second term, and standing up for transgender people is the perfect opportunity to do just that. From ending the military’s exclusion of transgender servicemembers to protecting trans people from the discrimination that inhibits their basic life needs to ensuring they have access to proper medical care, there is plenty of room for progress.

Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper

After the Log Cabin Republicans’ disappointing endorsement of Mitt Romney yesterday, media outlets speculated as to what would inspire them to abandon their principles in such a way. Ben Adler at The Nation noticed that LCR claimed it could “work with a Romney administration to achieve a desirable outcome” on workplace nondiscrimination, so he followed up with executive director R. Clarke Cooper. Cooper claimed that he was confident that Romney would support anti-discrimination legislation, because he “has been adamant” in opposing discrimination. Adler concluded that Romney must have secretly promised LCR support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in exchange for its endorsement. (Demonstrating conservatives’ distrust for Romney’s integrity, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association reacted quite negatively to the news.)

But BuzzFeed’s Chris Geidner double checked, and suddenly Cooper was not as enthusiastic about these claims, clarifying, “I did not say Romney would sign the current form of ENDA,” but that the group is confident that they could “achieve desirable tangible outcomes on workplace discrimination.” Herein lies the obvious flaw with LCR’s endorsement: completely false hope. Mitt Romney certainly proved in the debates that he’s capable of sounding moderate despite how conservative his principles — or at least his campaign platform — remain. Even if there was no ENDA promise, any hope conveyed to LCR by the Romney campaign in regards to federal employment protections was surely a ruse.

There is absolutely nothing in Romney’s history to warrant optimism that he has any concern for LGBT people. In May, he flat-out said that he would not support ENDA because he believes states should get to decide whether it’s okay to fire people just for being LGBT. As governor, he ostensibly fired two of his employees for just that reason, in addition to demonstrating galling insensitivity to LGBT families. Ryan’s record is no better; though at one point he did cast a vote in favor of ENDA, he then said he could no longer support it if included protections based on gender identity, and he has refused to answer questions on the matter since Romney tapped him as a running mate. Arguably, LCR only claims to support equality for “gay and lesbian Americans,” so perhaps they are prepared to abandon the transgender community to achieve “tangible outcomes” that include only protections based on sexual orientation.

What’s most telling is how incessant LCR has been about spinning the endorsement since it was announced yesterday, including this ENDA confusion. It is clearly a departure from its past integrity and the days when endorsements were withheld from candidates that did not adequately support LGBT (or at least LG) equality. In fact, GOProud splintered off from LCR specifically to be a group for gay conservatives whose priorities are unapologetically not concerned with LGBT rights at all. Perhaps LCR is jealous of the media attention GOProud has received from making waves at the Conservative Political Action Conference, but it’s clear that what lines once existed between the groups are quickly diminishing.

The Log Cabin Republicans claim that they are making a difference within the GOP by being present and swaying conservatives to better understand LGBT rights, and this may well be true on the individual level. However, the group accomplishes nothing — and abandons what principles its work is built upon — when it praises candidates like Romney who have nothing genuinely supportive to say at all. In fact, LCR’s effectiveness was very much drawn into question when it was revealed that party leaders developed a particularly anti-LGBT platform specifically to rebuke the group’s efforts to participate in the Republican National Convention. If a group no longer stands by its founding values and is creating a backlash anathema to its stated goals, it’s hard to understand what relevance it has at all.

Our guest blogger is Crosby Burns, Research Associate for LGBT Progress at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

More than half of US workers in today’s labor force work in a state where it remains perfectly legal under state law to fire someone for being gay or transgender, according to new research from the Center for American Progress.

Congress has yet to pass a law making it illegal to fire workers for being gay or transgender. Congress must pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to ensure that all workers in all states have statutory protections from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Until then, what remains is a patchwork of state laws that afford legal protections to gay and transgender workers in some states, and others that offer none at all. 21 states and the District of Columbia currently have laws that outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, 16 of which do so on the basis of gender identity.

The Center for American Progress breaks down the numbers that underscore the need for federal legislation to help combat employment discrimination against this vulnerable population:

• 76,300,000 workers, or 55% of all workers, can be unduly forced into unemployment based on sexual orientation- or gender identity-discrimination

• 42,044,205 children currently live in a state that has failed to pass a law that would make firing their parent, guardian, or other caretaker illegal

• In terms of area, 71%of the square mileage in the United States are in states that afford no legal protections for gay and transgender workers

• 75% of all US counties are in states where it remains legal to fire someone for being gay or transgender under state law

• 9,039,863 manufacturing workers, 1,611,657 famers, and 1,816,964 K-12 teachers live and work in states that do not have statutes outlawing sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination

• African-Americans are more likely to live in states without these protections. 67% lack sexual orientation and gender identity protections, compared to 55% of the general population

It is worth mentioning that a recent watershed decision from the EEOC found that discrimination against transgender individuals based on their gender identity falls within Title VII’s prohibition on “sex” discrimination. While this ruling gives transgender individuals workplace protections, statutory protections are necessary to affirm and clarify that discrimination based on gender identity is illegal in all 50 states under federal law.

Check out the Center for American Progress’ full infographic on this topic here.

Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO)

DENVER, Colorado — A Republican Congressman has broken with his party and announced his support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a key piece of legislation that would make it illegal to discriminate against LGBT individuals in the workplace.

“I don’t believe we ought to be discriminating against people for their private lives,” Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) explained to ThinkProgress outside Wednesday’s presidential debate. “I’m a businessman. When you walk in the door, if you’re able to do the job and you’re focused on your job, that’s all that’s important”:

SCOTT KEYES (TP): Federal legislation making it illegal to fire someone for being gay, for instance. What would you think about a bill like that?

TIPTON: I’m a businessman. When you walk in the door, if you’re able to do the job and you’re focused on your job, that’s all that’s important.

KEYES: I assume you wouldn’t fire someone for being gay. But do you think it should be illegal for other businesses to do that?

TIPTON: I think we’ve got a good policy in this country of not being discriminatory and we should not be in regards to people’s personal lives. It is in the employment into the world. It’s about the ability to be able to do the job. That’s certainly my focus.

KEYES: So you would probably be voting in favor of something like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act?

TIPTON: Yeah, yeah. I don’t believe we ought to be discriminating against people for their private lives.

Listen to it:

ENDA has floundered in Congress because Tipton’s colleagues in the Republican caucus have repeatedly voted it down. Their rationales have ranged from believing homosexuality is a “choice” to calling the legislation a “war on religion“.

In 2007, Paul Ryan cast the lone pro-gay vote of his career, voting for a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would have made it illegal to fire an employee just for being gay, lesbian, or bisexual. But he refused to support the bill if it included similar protections for transgender Americans.

The vice-presidential nominee was one of 35 Republicans in the House to vote for the bill (after voting to kill the measure moments before in a procedural vote), but did so only after transgender protections had been removed from the measure. According to a 2010 Roll Call article, Ryan pushed the bill’s sponsor — Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) — to exclude protections based on gender identity and expression:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) also said he would likely vote against the legislation with transgender protections, and he said he’s told Frank as much.
“It makes it something you can’t vote for,” Ryan said. “I think ENDA’s the right thing to do,” but transgender language “changes the equation.”
Ryan declined to detail his objections, saying he wanted to read the final package.

According to a Task Force survey, 90 percent of transgender Americans have experienced “harassment, mistreatment or discrimination on the job or took actions like hiding who they are to avoid it.” The same survey showed 47 percent had been fired, not hired, denied a promotion, or experienced a similar adverse job outcome based on their gender identiy or expression. At present, 34 states offer no legal protection for transgender citizens who experience workplace discrimination.

By refusing to support an fully-inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Ryan helped perpetuate the very real discrimination that transgender Americans face — because he thought that protecting them was something “you can’t vote for.”

California Assembly Speaker John Pérez (D)

Last night’s speakers at the Democratic National Convention once again included many mentions of the LGBT community. Boston Mayor Tom Menino (D) boasted, “You know what we call same-sex couples? Our friends. Our brothers and sisters.” Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) called out conservatives: “From marriage equality to voting rights, someone will fight against expanding the rights enjoyed by some Americans to all Americans.” And California Assembly Speaker John Pérez (D), who is openly gay, identified that many LGBT people still experience employment discrimination across the country:

PÉREZ: In too many states, even some folks who have a job wake up every morning worrying that they may lose their job simply for being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. We fight for them. [...]

[Obama] helped repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ giving LGBT Americans the opportunity to openly and proudly serve our nation in uniform. And he’s standing up for the right of those of us in LGBT community to say, ‘I do.’

Watch it:

Though many convention speakers have recognized the LGBT community, Pérez was the first to identify transgender people by name.

Our guest blogger is Hilary Brandenburg, intern at the Center for American Progress.

This weekend, Americans will take a day off from work to celebrate Labor Day, a day dedicated to the progress Americans have achieved in the workplace over the years. The U.S. Department of Labor website notes that Labor Day is a “yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” However, not all workers are equal under the law. LGBT workers continue to face high rates of workplace discrimination and often receive unequal benefits for equal work for them and their families.

Knowing this, the Center for American Progress and AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the nation’s largest and fastest growing public services employees union, released a report entitled “Gay and Transgender Discrimination in the Public Sector: Why It’s a Problem for State and Local Governments, Employees, and Taxpayers.”

According to this report, a majority of state government employees are currently working in states that fail to offer legal protections to LGBT public sector workers. With approximately one million LGBT individuals in America working in state, local, or municipal government, only 21 states and the District of Columbia have any laws specifically protecting gay workers, and only 16 of those do so for transgender workers. Looking at coverage:

• 57 percent of state employees work in a state where no legal protections are afforded to gay individuals.
• 69 percent live in state where no legal protections are afforded to transgender individuals.
• Only a minority of state employees (just over four in ten, or 42.6 percent) work in a state with a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.
• Only three in ten (31.8 percent) work in a state with a law also prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity.

Similarly, CAP and AFSCME find that a majority (53 percent) of state government employees do not have equal access to health insurance for them and their partners.

Discrimination and unequal treatment are unfortunate realities for far too many of our nation’s LGBT public sector workers. This is harmful to LGBT workers who all too often find themselves without a job or a way to make ends meet due to employment discrimination. This is harmful to running an efficient public sector, since discrimination imposes costs and inefficiencies for governments. And it is harmful to taxpayers, who are left with the bill to cover these costs.

Among many policy recommendations, this report calls on Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, EDNA, making discrimination against a worker based on their sexual orientation or gender identity a crime in all 50 states. States should similarly pass laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT workers and laws the extend the full range of workplace benefits to employees with same-sex partners.

LGBT public servants go to work every day as firefighters, teachers, policemen and women, nurses, library workers, child care providers, and sanitation workers to provide for our communities, to help care for our children and families, and to keep America functioning. This Labor Day, we must continue to fight for progress and demand better for LGBT employees, taxpayers, and our public sector.