President Barack Obama is planning to sign an executive order today that will prohibit discrimination against gay and transgender workers in the federal government and its contracting agencies, including many religious organizations who will now be forced to choose between federal contracts or violating their faith.
The Associated Press is reporting that the executive action will put into effect portions of the controversial Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of groups that cannot be discriminated against by employers. The law, which poses numerous problems for religious organizations who contract with government, such as forcing them to hire transgendered persons and practicing homosexuals as well as provide health care for their “spouses”, has repeatedly stalled in the both the House and the Senate. The latest version, which passed the Senate, has not been taken up by the GOP controlled House.
The president has decided to essentially enact a portion of this law by amending two executive orders signed by Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. The Johnson order, signed in 1965, prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, gender or nationality in hiring. The second order was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1969 and adds “age and disability” to the existing list of prohibitions.
“Obama plans to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protections, and order the Labor Department to carry out the order,” the AP reports. It is expected to take place early next year.
Even though religious groups that have contracts with the federal government are still able to enjoy a limited exemption from existing anti-bias rules which were put in place by President George W. Bush, religious groups say they need more protection.
“Some groups wanted Mr. Obama to go further to protect religious groups in carving out an exception,” the New York Times explains. “One example of such protections would allow a Catholic charity that believes sex outside heterosexual marriage is a sin to keep its government financing if it declined to hire a gay man.”
For this reason, leaders such as Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, Larry Snyder, CEO of Catholic Charities USA and Michael Wear, Obama’s 2012 National Faith Vote Director, joined together in sending a letter to the president earlier this month requesting that a religious exemption be included in the order.
“Without a robust religious exemption … this expansion of hiring rights will come at an unreasonable cost to the common good, national unity, and religious freedom,” the letter states.
The Obama Administration did not respond to the letter and now appears to be planning to sign the order with no religious exemption.
Many see today’s refusal to include a broader religious exemption in today’s order as retaliation against the U.S. Supreme Court for ruling against the administration in the Hobby Lobby decision which protected the religious liberty of some religious employers who were being forced to provide insurance coverage for abortifacient drugs.
Today’s executive order is expected to kick off a new round of legal battles.
Galen Carey, the vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals, told the New York Times: “It would be better if the president could provide leadership that promotes tolerance all the way around rather than use the force of the state.”
Carey said the exemption would have protected the groups’ freedom and “social harmony as our nation is working through these issues, on which there’s a lot of disagreement.”
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