House Democratic leaders say they are committed to taking up early next year a measure that would outlaw employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, but the delay has angered gay activists.

The House Education and Labor Committee has pushed off consideration of the measure until 2010, after canceling a scheduled markup last month.

Education and Labor Chairman George Miller said language is still being worked out regarding some outstanding issues, including attorney fees and whether plaintiffs claiming job bias based on gender identity would be able to seek relief under both the new statute and the existing Civil Rights Act section on employment discrimination. Both issues were raised by witnesses during a hearing on the measure earlier this year.

“I think that all seems to be going pretty well,” Miller, D-Calif., said Tuesday.

The delay has disappointed gay rights groups, who had hoped to see their top legislative priority begin advancing before the end of the year.

“There is absolutely no reason for Congress to continue to delay this noncontroversial bill or drop LGBT issues to the bottom of their agenda,” a coalition of gay rights groups wrote in a joint statement last week. “We will not be denied basic rights any longer.”

The measure’s sponsor, Barney Frank , D-Mass., said he “would like to do it quicker” but said Miller is “very well intentioned.”

“Whether it’s marked up next week or during the third week in January makes no difference in its ultimate passage schedule,” Frank said Tuesday.

In the Senate, Tom Harkin , D-Iowa, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said last month he did not intend to take up similar legislation until 2010 either.

Tom Perez, the assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, strongly endorsed the measure during testimony at a Senate HELP committee hearing on the bill in November.