10 Out in the Mountains

January 2000

PIIIITIIIAL VIEWS
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Holiday Surprises
in the House  

decided to run for re-election. As far

as the US House goes, this is very
good news for gay and lesbian
Vermonters — although it would have
been fun to see how he’d fare against
Senator Jeffords.

Bernie is one of our strongest sup-
porters in Congress. He was one of only
67 house members to support us by vot-
ing against the horrible Defense of
Marriage Act, a bill 342 House mem-
bers supported.

I had an even greater surprise, how-
ever, when I decided to look at individ-
ual House races across the country.

First, let’s set the scene. The experts
say that Democrats have a 50-50 chance
of winning the House. They just need to
win five seats to do it. The easiest seats
to win are open seats where there are no
incumbents. At this point, there are
nineteen seats open because of
Republicans retiring or running‘ for
other offices and only five open seats
that the Democrats will have to defend.
Of these open seats, at least 12 are con-
sidered potentially competitive. Nine of
those seats belong to Republicans, com-
pared to three held by Democrats. This
bodes well for the Democrats.

Democrats winning the House next

lwas surprised when Bernie Sanders

year would be good for gays and les-
bians simply because whoever wins the
most seats gets to choose the leaders,

‘and the leaders set the agenda. When

you compare the Democratic leaders

Majority Leader Richard Armey, or
Majority Whip Tom DeLay — have co-
sponsored any of them.

When you look at actual votes, the
difference is even more striking. Of ten
bills listed by HRC as important to gays
and lesbians, the Republican leaders
voted against us every time they voted.
The Democratic leaders voted for us
nine out often times. The one exception
was the Religious Liberty Protection
Act, and frankly, I’m not sure whether
that one would have hurt us or not.

I found a stunning surprise when I
turned to the records of the incumbents
in the 12 races that are supposed to be
the closest in the country. The
Republican representatives in question
are Baker, Louisana; Cook, Utah;
Dickey, Arkansas; Fletcher, Kentucky;
Hostettler, Indiana; Rogan, California;
Sherwood, Pennsylvania. The
Democrats are Bonior, Michigan;

When you compare the Democratic leaders and
Republican leaders you quickly see how important
having the Democrats win the house would be for

gays and lesbians.

and Republican leaders, you quickly
see how important having the
Democrats win the House would be for
gays and lesbians.

The Human Rights Campaign lists
four bills that are important for gays
and lesbians: the Hates Crimes
Prevention Act; Patients’ Bill of Rights;
Early Treatment for HIV Act; and the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Democratic Minority leader Richard
Gephardt and Minority Whip David
Bonior are co-sponsors of all four of
these bills. None of the Republican
leaders — Speaker Dennis Hastert,

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before 5 pm January 18

Forbes, New York; Hoeffel,
Pennsylvania; Holt, New Jersey;
Maloney, Connecticut.

In the ten votes selected by the HRC

as important to our community, no
Republican voted in oLir favor more
than once. In the same votes, no
Democrat voted for fewer than eight of
our issues. Look at the four current
issues before Congress important to
gays and lesbians. None of the above
Republicans have co—sponsored any. Of
the Democrats, Bonior co—sponsored all
four and the others each co—sponsored
three.

In short, in the closest races, the
Republicans in danger of losing their
seats are not supportive of our issues,
and the Democrats are among our great-
est supporters. If someone wanted to
make a cost-effective financial contri-
bution to fight homophobia in the
upcoming election, one could not do
better than donate to the Democrat in
each of these twelve races.

This stands in dramatic contrast with
several close US Senate Races such as
Rhode Island, New York, and Vermont,
where both the Democrat and
Republican are substantially supportive
of gays and lesbians.

For my early Christmas present next
year, all I want is for the seven unsup-
portive Republican House members
listed above to lose and the five sup-
portive Democrats to win. Is that too
much to ask?

Brendan Hadash is the minister of
the St. Johnsbury Universalist Church.

 

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