BTW, Equality Ohio Told Me How They Feel

A little while ago, I did a post asking about Equality Ohio's endorsement (well, to be fair, needling EO about their endorsement) of State Sen. David Goodman (R-New Albany), given that he was in a position to move the anti-discrimination bill to the floor but was not going to do so. The problem isn't Goodman's commitment to LGBT equality, I'm pretty convinced of that, actually. My problem is that in the grand scheme of things, even an unfriendly Democratic State Senator gets us closer to getting bills like this one passed than the rare species of LGBT-friendly Republican.

I wasn't surprised that EO responded, nor was I surprised that they expressed continuing support of the Senator. I was a bit surprised at the candor of the response, and the terms upon which they based it. It's more sophisticated than the messaging I got in '06, and I appreciate that:

We at Equality Ohio continue to support Senator Goodman for his position on issues related to equality for all people regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. As the Chairman of the committee, and the sole R co-sponsor, it was only through his discussion and work with his party leadership that we were able to secure proponent and opponent testimony on the bill - for the first time ever. I was involved in what it took to make this happen and personally saw the effort Senator Goodman put into securing the hearing, for more than four weeks. It is actually one of the only Democratic sponsored bills that any Senate committee has given proponent and opponent testimony to this session.

For Senator Goodman to stand up to protocol and have additional hearings without the consent of the Senate leadership or the support of the majority of the majority on the committee, would quite likely lose him his chairmanship of the committee before an additional hearing could occur... which would then also very seriously jeopardize any possibility for future hearings in the fall or lame duck. This is not a risk we're willing to push him to take.

Regardless of the fact that Senator Goodman won't yet confirm additional hearings to the press, we certainly believe we'll be testifying more on this bill before the end of this legislative session in December - and we're confident Senator Goodman will do what it takes to make that happen, in the manner that assures it will happen.

- Lynne Bowman, ED, Equality Ohio