Watch for Game Changers of 2009

If you want a feel for what to expect on gay rights legislation from the freshman class of the 111th Congress, take a peek at the Website of one of its most encouraging Senate members: Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

Shaheen points out she is "proud" to have signed 1997 legislation banning job and housing discrimination based on sexual orientation in New Hampshire as well as the 1999 repeal of a ban on gay adoptive or foster parents. She also notes she supported passage of her state's 2007 civil unions law, which gives gay couples many of the same rights as married heterosexuals.

She promises to push in the Senate to protect gay workers nationwide from job discrimination and to expand hate crimes laws to include anti-gay violence.

The Congress sure can use the battle-tested Shaheen, who after being targeted in 2000 by an anti-gay group that accused her of "supporting the radical homosexual lobby," went on to win her third term as governor.

She'll be joined by several gay-friendly freshmen senators, including Mark Udall of Colorado and Tom Udall of New Mexico. The Udall cousins helped the House pass a 2007 bill to outlaw job discrimination based on sexual orientation and now will help in the Senate, where the measure has a steeper climb.

The promising freshman class — which includes gay Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado — is one of 2009's potential game changers for the gay rights movement.

Many of the freshmen come from states that already enjoy basic gay protections. So they'll be asked to extend those safeguards to all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. And they'll be asked to update federal law to respect their state laws by, for example, getting rid of the discriminatory tax treatment of gay partners' health benefits.

Those freshmen's "been there, done that" experiences may be key to finally getting breakthrough gay-rights legislation to the White House — and signed into law.

The incoming president has promised that "change" will include gay-rights advances.

Here's a peek at other potential game changers I'll be watching for this year.

Supreme Court vacancy: If one opens, it'll likely be among the five-vote bloc of gay-supportive justices. President-elect Barack Obama has signaled he'd nominate justices who believe in the "living" Constitution, which would keep that majority in place for the next set of gay cases.

New president: Anti-gay rabble-rousers turned Bill Clinton's early days as president topsy-turvy over gays in the military. Obama should expect a similar test on following through on gay-friendly campaign pledges.

GOP future: As polls show voters are increasingly gay friendly, the badly bruised GOP meets later this month to pick its new national chairman. Meanwhile, the gay Log Cabin Republicans will get a new president. Both selections will signal what to expect next in the tussle over the party's direction on gay rights.

Marriage: Iowa's top court could rule on gay marriage; California's Supreme Court will decide whether to overturn the voter initiative that halted gay marriages in its state; and lawmakers in New York and New Jersey might open marriage to their gay couples.

Civil rights movements are painfully slow. But 2009 arrives with an exciting list of potential game changers.

Deb Price of The Detroit News writes the first nationally syndicated column on gay issues. To find out more about Deb Price and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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