For most of us, there's nothing ambiguous about Leviticus 19:18: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against, the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

Not so the Christian Right. For them, these words are apparently equivocal, at least when it comes to the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender community. Aided by such anti-abortion organizations as Missionaries to the Preborn and Operation Save America, a coalition of "pro-family" groups - including Focus on the Family, The Traditional Values Coalition, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council - are organizing to stop Congressional passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, more commonly called the Hate Crimes bill.

ENDA starts with the assumption that employment discrimination against LGBTQ workers is harmful, violates standards of equality and fairness, and should be illegal. Its supporters - dozens of large corporations and groups including the ACLU, The Human Rights Campaign, NOW, The National Council of Churches, and The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights -believe that curtailing anti-queer discrimination requires adding sexual preference and gender identity to race, religion, color, sex and national origin, categories protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  

A 2007 report by the ACLU attests to the need. According to Working in the Shadows, 38 states presently allow employers to fire or refuse to hire someone based on gender identity, meaning that someone who is transitioning from male-to-female or female-to-male can be let go for reasons having nothing to do with competence, skill, or performance. On top of this, 30 states allow employers to fire or refuse to hire someone because of his or her actual or perceived sexual orientation. As if this weren't enough, a 2007 survey conducted by careerbuilders.com and Kelly Services found that 78 percent of LGBTQ workers interviewed had experienced discrimination or unfair treatment on the job, from verbal taunts to physical assaults. 

As written, ENDA applies to businesses with 15 or more employees but excludes both the military and religious organizations. Brian Moulton, Senior Counsel at the Human Rights Campaign, was involved in drafting ENDA. He favors using other legislative channels to repeal the military's current Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy and explains that most civil rights laws exempt religious bodies from compliance. "Religious groups have a First Amendment right to determine that folks who perform particular functions can make decisions based on their religious beliefs. We want to respect this," he says.

You'd think this would mollify conservatives, but it doesn't. Concerned Women for America, for one, predicts that ENDA will "open businesses to harassment by homosexual activist lawyers" and lambastes the bill as "a gay power grab that will severely curb Constitutionally guaranteed inalienable rights that Americans hold dear, including the freedoms of speech, religion and association."

Focus on the Family goes even further, lamenting the "silencing" of those who "hold Biblically orthodox views on homosexual or transgender behavior."

These objections, however, are tame when compared to the vitriol spewed against the Hate Crimes bill. Named for Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old Wyoming student who was beaten to death by homophobes in 1998, the legislation will expand 1969's federal hate crime provisions to include "bias motivated crimes based on the victim's real or perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability." It will also allow the feds to prosecute anti-LGBTQ hate crimes when local law enforcement doesn't.

Advocates utilize FBI statistics to bolster their case. Although the Bureau does not yet keep statistics on bias attacks against transsexuals, 1265 hate crimes linked to sexual orientation were logged in 2007, including 29 murders.

For progressives, the fact that people are targeted because of who they are makes the need for the Hate Crimes bill obvious. Not surprisingly, the Right disagrees. 

Operation Save America rants that the bill will "criminalize the Bible and give pedophiles protected status."

The Family Research Council blasts that it will give "homosexuals and cross-dressers more protection against violence than children or the elderly," while Focus on the Family invokes the specter of Big Brother's muzzle, railing that "pastors who preach against homosexuality could end up prosecuted if they are found to have induced a hate crime against a self-identified homosexual by preaching from the Bible." 

Not to be outdone, the website of The Traditional Values Coalition carps that the bill will "make at least 30 sexual orientations into federally protected minority groups." Those orientations? Among them are coprophilia, sexual arousal from feces, and apotemnophilia, arousal from the stumps of an amputee.

Really.

It's hard to respond to such absurdities but advocates have tried. They point out that the Hate Crimes Bill, like ENDA, specifies that religious objections to homosexuality are classified as neither hate crimes nor hate speech. Furthermore, they reiterate that neither bill does anything to curtail verbal dissent or protect pedophiles. What's more, they argue that the Act blocks information about speech or association from courtrooms unless "it is specifically related to the commission of a crime."

President Obama has indicated his support for ENDA, but Congress has yet to vote on it in this session

Meanwhile, the House and Senate recently passed Hate Crimes legislation, but don't uncork the champagne just yet. A conference to iron out disparities between the House and Senate versions is needed and compromise may be difficult thanks to a pro-death penalty rider appended by ultraconservative Jefferson Sessions III (R-AL) to the Senate version. Sessions' action puts progressives in a bind. Should we support legislation that includes capital punishment or oppose it unless the provision is deleted? 

Debate continues. Both ENDA and the Hate Crimes bill are likely to move forward in September.