House Approves Ban on Anti-Gay Discrimination

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By DAVID M HERSZENHORN
Published: November 7, 2007

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — The House approved a bill this evening granting broad protections against discrimination in the workplace for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals, a measure that supporters praised as the most important civil rights legislation since the adoption of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 but that opponents said would result in unnecessary lawsuits.

The bill, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, is the latest version of legislation that Democrats have pursued since 1974 when Representatives Edward I Kock and Bella Abzug of New York first sought to protect gay men and lesbians with a measure that they introduced on the fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, the confrontation between gay men and police officers at a bar in Greenwich Village that is widely viewed as the start of the American gay rights movement.

“On this proud day of the 110th Congress, we will chart a new direction for civil rights,â€