Feldblum
As earlier noted, Georgetown Law Professor, and longtime LGBT equality scholar, Chai Feldblum has been nominated to serve as one of the commisioners on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Feldblum would be the first openly LGBT commissioner for the EEOC, which would be responsible for addressing sexual orientation and gender identity workplace discrimination if the Employment Non-Discrimination Act becomes law, as expected, in this Congress.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will be considering Feldblum’s nomination at 10 a.m. today, along with the nominations of several other EEOC nominees.
As detailed elsewhere, the far Right has taken up the cause against Feldblum, with the Traditional Values Coalition threatening that Feldblum would (unbelievably predictably):
impose the LGBT agenda on all of our nation’s public and private schools – and our children would be forced to affirm gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered individuals as both teachers and as students.
From a gay agenda to recruiting our kids, this one line is a compounding of all the Right’s various arguments into what they hope will be a successful attack on an eminently qualified nominee.
The more substantive opposition to Feldblum focuses on comments Feldblum has made in the past about the conflict between individual religious beliefs and enforcment of public anti-discrimination laws.
The best line, though — and one that gives away a bit too much — comes from TVC’s Andrea Lafferty:
“She comes at this as a sort of lesbian Katie Couric. Perky, disarming, so she continues to push the envelope,” Andrea Lafferty, with the Conservative Traditional Values Coalition, explained.
So, there you go. Even the far Right says that Obama has nominated “America’s Sweetheart.”
Among the other nominations to be considered at today’s hearing are:
- NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund lawyer Jacqueline A. Berrien (bio), nominated to serve as the Chair of the Commission.
- D.C. lawyer — and former Deputy Labor Secretary during the Bush Administration — Victoria Lipnic (release), nominated to serve as a Commissioner.
- Longtime EEOC lawyer P. David Lopez (release), nominated to serve as counsel to the Commission.
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Chris Geidner is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who writes at Law Dork, is the senior political writer at Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications. An extended biography can be found