Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) had a busy day yesterday dicussing the significance, importance, and the necessity for the passing of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act – the bill that he has inherited from the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

After Thursday’s Senate hearing, Merkley took time out of his busy schedule to talk with Just Out about the events, witness testimony, and the lack of a representative from the Republican party at the hearing (you can check out the print recap of the hearing by picking up your copy of Just Out right now…).

Check out the full interview with Merkley after the jump!

Just Out: Watching the hearing this morning, the sense of America being ready for ENDA was echoed more than a few times. One challenge brought up for the passing of the bill was educating the public to better inform their leaders about workplace discrimination. In what ways do you feel that this education is being carried out with regard to ENDA?

Merkley: Certainly, there’s a lot of recognition that America has moved a great distance since the last time we held a hearing on ENDA in the Senate, which was 2002. Education in the public comes in many respects. I want to particularly note Nike as an Oregon corporation that has been a real leader in helping educate the business community. The result has been a tremendous shift in terms of non-discrimination policies established within the Fortune 500 companies, and then of course, non-Fortune 500 companies. We’ve got the numbers on the Fortune 500 companies, and that’s a very impressive shift. I do think the Attorney General [Tom Perez] noted how a big part of their responsibility is to reach out and educate businesses about how non-discrimination works in the business place, and that that really helped them to understand the law, be comfortable with the law, and be in compliance with the law. I think that will be a big piece of it.

I also think it’s just tremendous that we have these experiences from various states, to be able to share those experiences. If we can convince the rest of the country to pay attention, then they can no longer claim that the sky is falling.

Speaking of that, what significance do you put on Sen. Franken’s sentiment of “inevitability” in terms of civil rights? How far do you feel that sentiment goes with regard to the overall education to the American people about sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination?

You know, I held a conversation earlier this morning after the press conference with a transgender individual. I said, “We are going to win this battle. We can see how far the concept of fairness has moved. But the goal is to win it sooner rather than later.” And I do feel it’s inevitable we will win this battle, but we don’t want to win it 30 years or 20 years from now; we want to win this battle of non-discrimination in this two-year legislative cycle. I want to note that the chairman of the committee, Sen. Harkin, said it was his full intention to try to move this bill to the floor next year, and that’s certainly my goal: hearing this fall, and moving to floor action next spring.

And by the way, I really think something that will help us tremendously in that regard is the backing of the president’s team. I think it’s significant that Tom Perez, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, said multiple times that this was a “top priority of the Obama administration.”

Which witness testimony struck you the most and why?

Certainly Mike Carney’s testimony. He had been a law enforcement officer who learned early on to hide the fact the he was gay because of how he saw others treated. Finally, he came to a point in his life where he was so completely miserable, he quit. Then he found himself, he came out as a gay man and he reapplied several years later in a group of five officers. Four were reaccepted back onto the force but he wasn’t. He was very surprised, so he applied again and he was turned down again – he had a great record. He tried a third time with the support of the mayor, and the support of the sheriff, and he was turned down again. He just couldn’t believe it! They then filed one of the first discrimination suits for complaints in Massachusetts, and it took the Commission Against Discrimination two-and-a-half years to make a decision. But they found that, yes, he was discriminated against. He described the first 30 years of his life as “hell.”

I said, “How is our constitutional goal of the pursuit of happiness reflected by your life?” And he said, “The first 30 years of my life were hell because of lack of ability for fairness in employment.”

I said, “What would have happened if you were outside of Massachusetts or outside of a state that had non-discrimination laws?” And he said, “Well, I never would have been able to pursue my career.” It was very powerful testimony.

I also was so struck by Helen Norton’s testimony, from the School of Law. She laid out a list of the type of harassment… Often we think of non-discrimination as a hiring issue, but she laid out the harassment and torment people were put through on their jobs. When they filed complaints, they were told “what you have suffered is abominable, reprehensible, morally reprehensible, inappropriate,” but in each case those words were followed by something to the effect of “but the law does not protect you from discrimination, or harassment.” I mean, harassment! Just vicious conduct on the worksite. So it’s a reminder it’s not just about hiring, it’s also about not being harassed on the work site.

And obviously that’s something that everybody on that committee could not ignore. That’s pretty powerful.
That’s right, but one of the things that I was disappointed in was that not a single republican came to the hearing. We will take the hearing to my colleagues. We will take the case, we will ask them to meet with folks who have gone through discrimination, we will carry this conversation to them.

That’s the next step?

We have 42 sponsors [for the bill], including myself, and whether or not we have more sponsors isn’t the question, it’s whether we have more folks who will vote for closure on the bill. We need that 60, and we are confident to get 50 and we’re going to have to work hard to answer all the concerns. These concerns were at the hearing today, that’s why I wish my colleagues had sat in and heard this powerful testimony.

But, yes, we are protecting religious organizations; no it will not create a flood of lawsuits; no it’s not difficult for businesses to comply with. Here in Oregon, we haven’t had a business come forward and say, “I couldn’t comply.” [The Oregon Equality Act has] been in place 18 months. One of the things that they found in Illinois was the number of complaints about treatment actually dropped. And it dropped when the law was enacted, which means as people are educated, that [it’s understood that this] conduct is unacceptable. People are getting hired and people are being treated decently on the job, and people know [discrimination is] not okay. A few years ago, we knew it wasn’t okay to do that in a racial or gender context, and you know what? It applies to sexual identity and sexual orientation too.