CONGRESSMAN Jared Polis 2nd DISTRICT OF COLORADO

Washington, Sep 23, 2009 -
Education and Labor Hearing Employment Non-Discrimination Act

Mr. Chairman, Thank you for not only holding this important hearing today, but in your leadership on this bill now, and in past congresses. This issue is of vital importance for millions of individuals across our country who, like certain groups in the past, have questioned if our country truly values the statement “and justice for all.” It is our responsibility as representatives and policy leaders to ensure that this statement isn’t simply made in vein, but carries with it a foundation of truth.  We must ensure that when we invoke this term, we invoke it not as an empty patriotic phrase but as a true American value, applicable to every citizen. This is an issue of great personal and philosophical importance to me, and I thank you on both those levels for your continued leadership.   
M. Chairman, today, millions of our nation’s citizens have no protection under the law for injustices that they suffer in the workplace.  The civil rights movement forced our country to face an unfortunate truth that the values that we hold dear as a nation, the foundational principals that led our nation to prosperity and independence and were born during an age of great enlightenment had not been applied to an entire group of citizens in that very country.  Since that time we’ve continued to identify shortcomings and injustices that other groups have and continue to suffer, and now realize that the struggle for civil rights for all people in our nation will perhaps never end, but we keep trying.  

I hope that today our committee will be able to promote to the American people and our colleagues in the House of Representatives that discrimination, whether codified into law or simply a byproduct of old and dying norms, isn’t good for our society, economy, or nation as a whole.  This is particularly true when we talk about employment discrimination, and I hope that the contributions of me and my colleagues Rep. Barney Frank and Rep. Tammy Baldwin to this hearing will underscore the irrationality of discrimination towards GLBT individuals in the workplace.  Gay men, lesbian women, bisexual and transgender individuals have proven that sexual and gender identity have absolutely no bearing on the professional abilities and successes that they or anyone is capable of achieving today.  

Personally, I hope that my success in both the private sector and my current public service career is in itself an outright rebuttal to the arguments of those who think that employment discrimination based on sexual or gender identity has any rational merit whatsoever.  For our nation to tacitly endorse a professional glass ceiling for any group, where an individual risks losing something as valuable as a job for something as valuable as an identity is not something we can accept in good conscience.
Philosophical objections aside, this tacit acceptance of discriminatory policies is not good for our economy either.  An individual who possesses the skills and character to become successful should have the ability to be successful regardless of personal identity.  Holding back millions of Americans from achieving the successes they can means holding back our nation’s economic potential as a whole. In this bill, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, we have the ability to rise our nation’s ethical tide and with it all our economic boats.  

I also hope that today’s testimony will highlight the prejudice and ugliness that people like me face when we discuss our personal identities.  The ugliness, fear, hatred and irrational furor that accompany the fight for equality has been faced by brave individuals and groups throughout American history, and they have both overcome it within our larger national identity, and continue to fight it personally on a daily basis. The same holds true millions of people in the GLBT community. Make no mistake, that proponents of discriminatory employment laws, like Colorado’s Amendment 2, draw their inspiration not from any rational need but from the ugliness and prejudice that has no place in American laws.  The Employment Non-Discrimination Act protects our nation’s valued freedom of religion, it is a reasonable, well crafted and well reasoned solution to a grave injustice and is opposed not by an equal rationality but by bigotry, fear and ignorance.  I hope that today’s hearing will highlight that unfortunate reality, not out of retribution but out of our continuing quest for truth and through truth equal justice.

I am proud to be an original cosponsor and ardent supporter of this legislation, and proud to share that distinction particularly with the two leaders that are on our first panel today, Representative Barney Frank, and Representative Tammy Baldwin.   
Once again I thank you Mr. Chairman for your leadership on this bill, and for the time that all the members of this committee will give to this issue and this vitally important piece of legislation.