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Today’s Hillary News & Views begins with Clinton’s ambitious LGBT policy platform, which was announced yesterday evening.
I think that it's important enough to share in its entirety. Following her pattern with other issues, her agenda includes a combination of legislative and executive actions.
The agenda is divided into several sections.
Part One: Fight for Full Federal Equality of LGBT Americans.
Today in America nearly 65 percent of LGBT individuals report experiencing discrimination in their daily lives and nearly 50 percent report that this discrimination occurs in the workplace. LGBT youth are nearly twice as likely as their peers to be physically assaulted at school and 74 percent of LGBT students say they’ve been verbally harassed for their sexual orientation. Despite this discrimination, 31 states do not have fully inclusive LGBT non-discrimination laws.
Clinton will:
Work with Congress to pass the Equality Act. The Equality Act would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related statutes to add gender identity and sexual orientation to the list of protected classes such as race, sex, national origin, and religion. The Act would provide LGBT individuals explicit and comprehensive protection from discrimination in all facets of American life—employment, housing, schools, access to credit, public education, jury service, and public accommodations. Clinton will fight for the passage of the Equality Act to secure full federal equality for LGBT Americans. Continue President Obama’s LGBT equality executive actions. President Obama has taken critical steps to protect LGBT people in employment, housing, and health care. For example, the Administration issued nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people employed by the federal government and federal contractors; published formal regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in federally funded housing programs; and published a Health and Human Services regulation for hospitals participating in Medicaid and Medicare requiring respect for advanced directives and visitation requests regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Clinton will fully implement and enforce the President’s LGBT equality executive actions. Support efforts underway in the courts and federal government to clarify that under federal statutes “sex discrimination” includes discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.” Courts across the country have concluded that “sex” discrimination encompasses discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, and federal agencies are following their lead. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has held that discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation constitutes sex discrimination under Title VII; the Department of Housing and Urban Development has concluded that the Fair Housing Act covers claims based on gender identity and sexual orientation; and the Department of Education has clarified that under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation is discrimination based on sex; and HHS is finalizing a proposed regulation implementing Section 1557 of the ACA, the act’s nondiscrimination protections, to recognize that sex discrimination includes gender identity and sex stereotyping. Clinton will support efforts to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation as discrimination on the basis of sex to help secure additional protections in important aspects of life until Congress acts to provide full federal nondiscrimination protections.