Contributor

Christopher E. Anders

Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office

Christopher E. Anders is the senior legislative counsel in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office. He represents the ACLU in lobbying Congress and the executive branch on lesbian and gay rights, the faith-based initiative, conflicts between religious claims and civil rights, fair housing, oversight of federal civil rights enforcement, restoration of civil rights protections eroded by the courts, hate crimes and HIV/AIDS issues.

Anders has worked on protections against sexual orientation discrimination in the federal workplace, in private employment, in marriage and adoption law, in immigration and on college campuses. Anders has had a critical role in stopping harmful legislation such as the Federal Marriage Amendment and the Marriage Protection Act. He also helped draft and develop legislative strategies for several bills that would advance legal protections of same-sex couples.

Anders has also led numerous fights against legislation and regulations that would harm the civil liberties of people with HIV/AIDS. Those efforts resulted in significant revamping of regulations on HIV testing, the reporting of names of HIV-positive people, partner tracing of HIV-positive people, as well as a complete revision of the CDC-recommended model for state public health privacy code.

For his work on gay rights issues, the Gay and Lesbian Attorneys of Washington awarded Anders its distinguished national service award in 2001.

Anders received his B.A. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984 and his J.D. from the College of William and Mary’s School of Law in 1991.