We often bemoan ideological purists on the right; social conservatives who hold the nation's progress hostage for a narrow and outdated agenda that is punitive, discriminatory.

Now, an icon of the left, Rep. Barney Frank, is raising a cautionary flag about ideological purity on the left, and how it may impede progress or at the very least makes governing impossible.

On the verge of a long awaited victory for the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) protecting sexual and gender minorities from being fired, the reality in the House appears to be that passage only comes by excluding protections for transgender people from the bill.

From SFGate.com

Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is gay, is under ferocious attack from gay rights organizations for his decision to strip transgender people from a long-sought bill to protect gays, lesbians and bisexuals from job discrimination.

Clearly angered by unaccustomed criticism from his most ardent allies, Frank called a press conference Thursday – which coincided with National Coming Out Day – in which he accused gay rights organizations of an all-or-nothing approach that punishes their friends and damages the prospects for future gay-friendly legislation.

Straying well beyond the transgender issue, Frank struck back at a much broader belief among many liberal voters and constituencies that the new Democratic majority on Capitol Hill has failed to deliver as much as expected. He warned activists that they were in danger of a Terry Schiavo-style miscalculation, referring to Republicans who tried to cater to core voters by intervening two years ago in the case of a Florida woman on life support.

"This is a moment of truth as far as I'm concerned for responsible liberals in the Democratic Party," Frank said.

"The question is: Can we govern responsibly? And governing responsibly means working with everybody, listening to and exchanging views with the people who care passionately … but then as you go forward with the goals, taking reality into account," Frank said. "People who then denounce those who take reality into account … make it impossible for us to govern."

On the right, purists want Roe v. Wade overturned, turning the clock back to a time when women had fewer rights and no personal control over their bodies and health care decisions. They want to slam shut the closet door and make people with diverse sexual and gender identities disappear. In short, they do not believe in the promise of America, equal opportunity for all.

The left can't wait for America's promised equality. Any moment wasted is an affront to every freedom loving person. Two-hundred and thirty-one years is a long time to struggle and fight for equality.

Both sides, at their polar extremes, make governing difficult. Saying that in no way undermines the principles each side holds, it simply recognizes the challenge our political system has making any extreme happy. It is the frustrating genius of our democracy.

One main difference between right and left, other than ideals, is that the right celebrates and works for incrementalism, cheering every erosion of Roe, adding up justices one by one, placing new obstacles in a woman's path to a full range of reproductive health care options, making access more difficult through intimidation and fear, passing marriage discrimination laws, preventing real sexuality education from happening one school at a time.

The left views incremental progress as selling out, caving in, leaving people behind.

Both sides have all or nothing goals and ideals, only one side recognizes what it takes to reach theirs, and for the past two decades, the right has been the side winning politically as a result.

The decision to compromise to get ENDA passed by excluding transgender people is one more admission that America has yet to fulfill her promise, and it creates a pit in my stomach recognizing the distance between the reality we must live and struggle with, and the values and ideals many of us progressives hold dear.

It is a ludicrous and false choice, but it is one that political pragmatists like Rep. Barney Frank are forced to make, or risk losing ENDA altogether. I do not envy those who are on the front lines of facing reality and making hard decisions that acknowledge America is not yet where she should be.

Most municipal and state non-discrimination acts started only with sexual orientation and over the years many have successfully included transgender people. More recently, local governments, like my home state Kansas, have succeeded in protecting gender identity as well as sexual orientation of state employees, by executive order of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D), not through compromise dictating legislation as is the only course for ENDA. None would have expected the Kansas Legislature to pass a non-discrimination act, many were surprised even by the Governor's Executive Order.

Is it a surprise then, that Congress lags behind progress in more urban areas or progressive local governments, or courageous leaders like Sebelius? Is there any surprise that in some parts of a very large and still quite conservative country, the education and information does not yet exist to get the entire non-discrimination act passed through Congress?

The purist left's goal is the correct one: full equality. We should work to make it so, but the lesson here is not that Rep. Barney Frank is failing us by accepting incremental progress, the lesson is that progressives have more work to do to persuade large parts of America that discrimination against anyone is not an American value.

The work of democracy is not easy, and the fact that large parts of the country would rather go backward than forward makes it more difficult.

But at the very moment when the swing of the pendulum is palpably moving toward a progressive era, progressives need not add to the difficulty by failing to recognize progress when we can achieve it, or by blaming leaders who have moved us further, faster than many dared imagine.

Congressman Frank may not be an ideological purist willing to sacrifice gain for any until he can achieve gain for all, but anyone with good working knowledge of Capitol Hill will tell you he is the most brilliant political strategist on the Hill, out of 534 other members, and we should all be thankful he's on our side.

Incremental progress is not a sell out, just look at how far the ideologues on the right have pushed their agenda with just such a strategy. Progressives must see this not as defeat, but as a call to action against the ignorance and intolerance that still exists, focusing our energies in those parts of the country, not at each other.