Republicans Have Zero Reaction To Obama's ENDA Executive Order

The Christofascists and professional Christian/hate group leadership crowd have been going berserk and engaging in spittle flecked rants over Barack Obama's signing of an ENDA executive order barring federal contractors (and their subcontractors) from discriminating against LGBT employees in the workplace.  Meanwhile, the leadership of the Republican Party has been remarkably silent on the issue.  One does have to wonder why given the usual willingness of GOP politicians to shamelessly prostitute themselves to anti-gay Christofascists.  Perhaps it is because survey after survey shows that high majorities of the public support such employment protections.  A piece in the Huffington Post looks at the GOP's strange silence on this issue that has portions of its base having apoplexy.  Here are highlights:

When President Barack Obama signed an executive order Monday making it illegal for federal contractors to fire or harass employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, civil rights advocates hailed the move as one of the most important actions ever taken by a president to stem discrimination.

Democratic lawmakers raced to issue statements celebrating the advancement for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. In addition to offering new protections for transgender federal employees, the executive order covers the broad federal contracting community -- some 24,000 companies employing 28 million workers, or about one-fifth of the nation's workforce.

But in Republican quarters on Capitol Hill, it's as if nothing happened. GOP leaders have been silent. Socially conservative members have gone quiet.

The Huffington Post searched the websites of the 18 congressional Republican backers of the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act -- a companion bill to the executive order -- to see if any of them put out a statement. Only one did: Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who said he supports the policy behind the executive order because "employees shouldn’t face unjust discrimination in the workplace simply because of their sexual orientation," though he raised concerns about the rights of religious employers.

Perhaps nobody better illustrated this point than House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). HuffPost asked him Thursday if he had any reaction to Obama's LGBT executive order.  "Nope," Boehner said at his weekly briefing. "The president signs a lot of executive orders."

Asked if he supports the principle of workplace protections being extended to LGBT employees, he punted again.  "Listen, the president is going to make his decisions. He can," Boehner said.

Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), one of the eight House GOP co-sponsors of ENDA, said Thursday that he didn't know about Obama's executive order. But he emphasized that if it has the same goal as ENDA -- which it does, except that ENDA has far broader implications -- he supports it.

"I co-sponsored ENDA because I think that should be the law for everyone," Grimm said.

The Republican lawmaker shrugged when asked if he thinks it's hurting his party that so many are sitting on the sidelines amid a revolution in LGBT rights. He said he thinks his colleagues are coming around. Slowly.

"Generally, I think our party is in transition," Grimm added. "More people are starting to pay attention."