This isn’t directly about ENDA, but it’s related, and it’s a neat story. At DailyKos, diarist jgilhousen tells about the little rural county that could (emphasis mine):
Early this Summer, after holding public hearings which included several hours of sometimes very heated testimony, the three members of the Wasco County, Oregon Court sitting as its legislative body unanimously passed an ordinance outlawing discrimination on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Two Republicans and One Democrat — Unanimously!
This occurred in the heart of rural Eastern Oregon, within Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District which Democrats have long ceded as “safe” Republican territory.
The religious right went ballistic almost immediately, and began beating the drums of fear and hatred. Recall petitions were taken out for circulation against the two Republican commissioners… apparently their sin was greater, since as Republicans, they should have known better.
That the measure passed, and unanimously, is astounding. What followed, even more so, as you can see after the fold.
Go read the whole thing — the short story is not that the judges survived the recall, but rather that the right-wing recall pushers couldn’t even get the 1,373 votes they needed to make the ballot.
As jgilhousen — one of the activists who fought the recall attempt — writes:
The moral(s) of the story: Stereotype (and write off) rural America at your peril. There is no place in this country where we cannot or should not stand up against bigotry.
Remember, it was my own red state — Arizona — that became the first in the nation to defeat an amendment outlawing recognition of same-sex relationships.
ENDAblog 