Santorum: Ok if you're Gay or Lesbian but no transgenders please

[LynneSin]

Rick Santorum’s Flip Flop on Bias

Gender PAC celebrated his support for non-discrimination pledge, but his office backtracks

http://gaycitynews.com/santorum/santorum.html

BY ANDY HUMM

Senator Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican trailing Democrat Bob Casey, Jr., the state treasurer, in his re-election bid, surprised but did not move LGBT leaders last week when he allegedly became the 170th member of Congress to sign a statement vowing that he will not discriminate in his Senate office on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.

Santorum’s purported agreement was announced in a press release issued last week by the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, or Gender PAC, which works to challenge gender role stereotyping and the discrimination it leads to. However, by August 9, Santorum’s out gay communications director, Robert Traynham, said that the statement was signed by an aide on Santorum’s behalf under the misapprehension that it was “consistent with our office manual,” which he said does ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but not gender identity or expression.

Traynham said they have “legal issues” with the inclusion of protections for people of transgender experience. “It is not something we would accept,” he said, adding that Santorum still does not believe federal law should protect people based on sexual orientation.

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The non-discrimination pledge, which has been circulating for three years now, has been signed by 25 senators including New York’s Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Schumer, but not by Pennsylvania’s moderate Republican Arlen Specter, who claims not to discriminate but avoids signing pledges of any kind.