Porter: No flip-flop on gay rights

By Lisa Mascaro

Friday, Nov. 23, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

WASHINGTON - The gay rights community has taken notice of Nevada's Rep. Jon Porter.

Porter was among 35 Republicans who supported a House bill this month to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Most Republicans had argued against the bill, saying it could open the door to legalizing gay marriage. One conservative group said the legislation would force business owners to abandon their religious beliefs in favor of "newfangled 'gay rights,' based on changeable sexual behaviors."

Porter's support did not happen by chance.

He was being lobbied on both sides of the issue, seen as a moderate whose vote could go either way.

The congressman is against gay marriage. He voted last year for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

But this year, when the House put forward another key piece of legislation for the gay rights movement, long-opposed hate crimes legislation, Porter joined a handful of Republicans who voted yes.

"He was seen as one of the members in the middle being targeted," said a source familiar with the strategy of the groups organized to get the legislation passed on Capitol Hill.

Nevada Republican Rep. Dean Heller voted against the bill. His office did not comment on his stance. Nevada Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley voted for the bill.

House passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act was a milestone for gay rights.

The bill was first introduced 14 years ago, but had never cleared either house in Congress. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said he will soon introduce a similar measure in the Senate.

There is no federal law preventing employers from firing workers for being gay. Many states, including Nevada, have protective laws on the books, but 30 states do not, according to Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay civil rights organization.

The bill would ban discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation in businesses with 15 employees or more.

In 1996, shortly after Republican takeover of both chambers in the 1994 election, the bill came within one vote of passage in the Senate.

This year, as the bill headed for a vote, conservative groups called on President Bush to issue a veto threat.

Shari Rendall, director of legislation and public policy at Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian policy organization in Washington, said in a statement at the time: "This bill would unfairly extend special privileges based on an individual's changeable sexual behaviors rather than focusing on immutable, nonbehavior characteristics such as skin color or sex."

The group's Matt Barber, director of cultural issues, added: "It represents the goose that laid the golden egg for homosexual activist attorneys and would open the floodgates for lawsuits against employers who wish to live out their faith."

Brad Luna, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, which lobbied for the bill, said the vote this month was the closest the legislation has come to advancing.

"The vote in the House was truly a historical and monumental moment for civil rights legislation in this country," he said.

Luna said 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies already have rules outlawing workplace discrimination for sexual orientation, and polls show most Americans support anti-discrimination laws for gay and lesbian workers.

Congress, he said, is merely playing catch-up after years of inaction under an "anti-gay leadership that had been in control of Congress."

Porter, a three-term congressman who is expected to face a tough reelection fight in 2008 in his politically split district, has been moderating his views since Democrats took over Congress at the start of this year.

On gay issues, he has received low marks from the Human Rights Campaign, which scores lawmakers based on their votes on issues important to the gay community.

During the past session of Congress, Porter received a zero from the group, the lowest score, largely because of his support for the anti-gay-marriage bill. Porter also voted last year against hate crimes legislation that was similar to the bill he helped pass in the House in spring. That bill would allow federal authorities to bring more resources to bear on prosecuting hate crimes against gays and lesbians.

Porter's office said the congressman's support for gay rights issues has not shifted.

What has changed, said Porter spokesman Matt Leffingwell, is the way the bills are coming to the floor under a Democratic-controlled Congress.

For example, last year Porter voted against the hate crimes legislation because it was tacked on as an amendment to a broader child protection bill that was among his top priorities. Because Bush could veto the larger bill because of the amendment, Porter opposed it, Leffingwell said.

When the hate crimes legislation came forward in May as a stand-alone bill, the congressman was among 25 Republicans who supported it.

"The difference is the way these pieces of legislation are coming to the floor now," Leffingwell said.

Similarly, when the employment discrimination bill came to a vote for the first time in years, Porter voted yes.

"The congressman believes that discrimination is discrimination - there is no gray area," Leffingwell said. "This is not necessarily a shift."

The gay rights community welcomed the support.

"This is an issue that's not a partisan issue," Luna said. Porter is part of a "good group of Republicans that understands this is about fairness."