Harry Reid calls on the House Thursday to move forward with ENDA. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Senate passes gay rights bill

The Senate made history Thursday, voting 64-32 to pass landmark legislation extending workplace protections to the LGBT community.

The legislation now heads to the House, where Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) opposes the measure. GOP aides argue that the protections contained in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — which bans workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation — are already enjoyed by American workers.


Democrats disagree — and noted that Boehner’s home state of Ohio is a state where such discrimination is not prohibited.

( Also on POLITICO: Reid: Mormons evolving on gay rights)

“The time has come for Congress to pass a federal law that ensures all citizens, regardless of where they live, can go to work not afraid of who they are,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said, adding that many Americans are under the impression that ENDA is already federal law. “Well it isn’t already the law. But that is what they feel. Let’s do what the American people think already exists.”

Reid said he worries that ENDA will be put into the same vault where Boehner has shelved bipartisan immigration, farm and Internet sales tax bills.

Senate Democratic leaders and other chief ENDA backers launched a rhetorical campaign before the bill even passed, calling on the speaker to be on the right side of history. They believe that ENDA would pass the House if it were put to a vote.

( Also on POLITICO: Gay rights bill poised for Senate vote)

“Anyone who is a student of history knows that our history books are littered with those public figures who said that we just can’t end that discrimination based on race, we cant end that discrimination based on age, based on disability, based on gender,” said Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “Think about their place in history today, and I won’t recount their names. Speaker Boehner: Think about the party you belong to.”

President Barack Obama also called on the House to act.

“One party in one house of Congress should not stand in the way of millions of Americans who want to go to work each day and simply be judged by the job they do,” Obama said. “Now is the time to end this kind of discrimination in the workplace, not enable it.”

( PHOTOS: 26 gay-rights milestones)

Despite the bill’s uncertain fate in the House, the Senate vote was a poignant moment for gay rights activists who were disappointed that similar legislation failed in the upper chamber by just one vote in 1996. A more recent version of ENDA that passed the House in 2007, when Democrats held a majority, never gained traction in the Senate.

A key hurdle was cleared earlier Thursday when the Senate voted 64-34 to end debate on ENDA. Ten Republicans joined with 54 Democrats to break a filibuster, including several members who had been previously on the fence.

Shortly before the successful procedural vote, an amendment from Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). to broaden religious exemptions in the bill failed to garner the requisite 60 votes for adoption. On Wednesday the Senate unanimously approved an amendment from Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) to extend protection from government retribution to religious groups exempted from ENDA, which helped bring some in the GOP on board.

When he was in the House, Flake voted for ENDA in 2007 — but the legislation lacked the gender identity component included in today’s measure. After the bill failed in a House committee, former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) stripped out the gender identity language, and the bill eventually passed the House but died in the Senate. This time around, outside groups, like the Human Rights Campaign, insisted to Senate leadership that the language be included.

Before the final vote, Flake said he was troubled by the gender identity provision because he believed it could increase lawsuits. ENDA’s chief sponsor, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and the Senate’s first openly gay member, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), tried to assuage Flake’s concerns, and he ultimately voted for the final bill.

“I have a better appreciation for what needs to be done and what can be done with this legislation as it moves through the process,” Flake said before the vote.