Most Americans Oppose LGBT Employment Discrimination by Churches

The results of a new survey contain bad news for Christofascists who believe that they should be above non-discrimination laws: a majority of Americans oppose anti-LGBT employment discrimination even by churches and only 30% of respondents believe privately held business corporations citing "religious beliefs" should be able to discriminate against gays.  Thus, while shrieks of "religious freedom" and/or "persecution of Christians" may play well in Christofascist and professional right wing Christian circles - and, of course, among political whores in the Republican Party - most Americans are not impressed.  The survey also found support for a federal ENDA law.  A post at The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the survey findings:

Fifty-five percent of Americans believe no employer, not even a church, should be allowed to discriminate in the employment of LGBT people if a federal law, like ENDA, were passed. A new Harris poll which surveyed over 2500 people found that just 35 percent of Americans think religious institutions, like churches, should be allowed to discriminate on religious grounds. Even less, just three in ten Americans, think privately-held businesses should be allowed to discriminate. 

And about one in five people think publicly held businesses (21 percent) or small businesses (19 percent) should be exempt if they cite religious beliefs.

"Americans simply don't believe that employer exemptions are justified when it comes to basic workplace safeguards for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans," The Harris Poll reports.

The survey also showed continued support for federal policies that end job discrimination for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals, as well as transgender employees. Two-thirds (65%) of American adults agree that federal law should be expanded to include protection from job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Also, when it comes to protections for transgender employees, more than half (54%) of all adults strongly agree that transgender workers should be treated equally and fairly as all other workers. 

 Hopefully, more and more Americans are coming to see far right Christians for the mean, self-centered, hypocrites that they are in fact. 

Despite Marriage Victories, Gays Still Lack Employment Protections in 29 States

Click image to enlarge

Part of the Christofascists' agenda to punish LGBT individuals for not conforming to far right religious dogma has been to deprive us of legal recognition of our relationships with our life partners.  The other equally insidious piece of this stigmatization and state sponsored discrimination has been to deprive us of employment protections.  Sadly, despite the victories on the marriage equality front, in 29 states LGBT individuals can still be summarily fired from their jobs simply for being LGBT.  Virginia, all too typically, ranks among such anti-gay states thanks in no small part to the hate group known as The Family Foundation and its political prostitutes in the Virginia GOP.  A piece in Huffington Post and a column in the Washington Post look at this unfortunate reality.   First some highlights from the Post:

I hate to be the skunk at the gay wedding, especially after swooning over those happening in the most unlikely places. But it’s time we deal with a couple of inconvenient truths that won’t change until both the Supreme Court and Congress act. And only the court is poised to actually act.

Writing for The Post’s Monkey Cage, New York University professor Patrick Egan highlights the dilemma facing same-sex couples marrying in states without protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Gay people can now get legally married in more states than where they are legally protected from job discrimination.  As this map shows, there are now five states — Indiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia — where gay people can get legally married and where it is perfectly legal for an employer to fire someone for being gay.

But don’t think this fear of discrimination based on sexual orientation is some abstract concern. Doug Schilling of Iowa wrote to me after reading my post on all the gay couples getting married last week. Noting that his state was the second in the nation to legalize marriage equality, Schilling said he was suing his former employer “who fired me for being gay after I gave my partner a kidney.” Schilling has legal recourse because Iowa prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

What’s needed is employment discrimination protection on the federal level. There was great hope that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would provide such protection. But the legislation has languished in the House since it arrived from the Senate with 64 votes nearly a year ago. Rising concern over proposed religious exemptions to the bill, combined with dim prospects of passage in the House, have led many LGBT activists and organizations to withdraw their support for ENDA and call for a comprehensive civil rights law that adds sexual orientation to the nation’s anti-discrimination statute. This won’t happen any time soon.

[O]lder same-sex married couples will find themselves in a bind when the need for Social Security benefits arises. Attorney General Eric Holder determined last February that “same-sex marriages valid in the place where the marriage was celebrated” would be viewed as legal under federal law. Unless that law is the Social Security Act, as we learned in June. That’s when the Social Security Administration announced that federal law required it “to follow state law in Social Security cases.” What that means for the partner of a lesbian couple who married in New York state but live in Georgia, where marriage equality doesn’t exist (yet), is that your claim for survivor benefits will be put on hold

Huffington Post continues the analysis and underscores the discrimination that gays face even in states that now have marriage equality:

For many activists, the top priority after marriage is federal legislation that would outlaw a broad range of discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. There's no such federal law now, and more than half the states do not ban discrimination by employers or public accommodations based on sexual orientation.

As a whole, the LGBT population is elated by the expansion of gay marriage. Yet according to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, about 40 percent of LGBT adults aren't interested in getting married, compared to 24 percent of the general public. And nearly 40 percent of the LGBT respondents said the marriage issue had drawn too much attention away from other concerns.

Gay-rights groups are looking ahead to the next session of Congress. Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign said there will be an aggressive push for a comprehensive LGBT civil rights bill that would seek anti-bias protections even beyond the workplace — in realms such as housing and access to credit.

In past years, broad GOP support for such a bill would have seemed impossible, but Sainz foresees a new era.

"The constant expansion of the marriage map changes the reality for Republicans," he said. "With every passing day, those who oppose LGBT equality increasingly look like dinosaurs."

Shannon Minter, the center's legal director [National Center for Lesbian Rights], said the "breathtaking progress" on marriage equality shouldn't weaken the broader drive for LGBT rights.

"Every day, LGBT people are fired from their jobs, kicked out of families, and stigmatized in their communities," Minter said. "Our future work must assure that every LGBT person, no matter who they are or where they live, enjoys equality, dignity, and justice."

In short, there is still a huge amount of work to be done.  Each of us can aid in the task by living as "out" and proudly as our circumstances permit.  That means coming out to friends and family members even if one must remain closeted at work.

Obama Will Not Exempt Religious Institutions On LGBT Employment Discrimination Rule

On Monday Barack Obama is to sign an ENDA executive order that bars federal contractors from discrimination against LGBT employees.  Thankfully, Obama seemingly has listened to his party's base and is rejecting calls from Republicans and, of course, Christofascists to allow special rights to those consumed with anti-gay animus to discriminate at will.  It goes without saying that the professional Christian class and leaders of hate groups such as Family Research Council and The Family Foundation here in Virginia will be launching into spittle flecked rants attacking Obama and claiming that anti-gay bigots are being persecuted.  The response to them is easy: if you want to discriminate, then don't put your hand out for federal money  It's really that simple.  These bigots do not get to have their cake and eat it too.  Here are highlights from Think Progress:

Federal contractors will not be able to discriminate against LGBT people in hiring even if they have a religious objection, the Obama Administration will announce on Monday. 

Last month, the administration announced it would amend two executive orders barring employers who rely on federal funds from discriminating against a series of traits. The current order includes race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Now, it will also include gender identity and sexual orientation. The move is a Band-Aid solution to the broader problem of Congress not passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that would bar all employers from discriminating against people based on their sexuality.

When the announcement came last month, though, there remained an open question as to whether religious objectors would be exempt. About 140 religious leaders requested broad exemptions, while more than 100 members of clergy specifically asked Obama not to include such an exemption. On Friday, Politico reported that the administration will not heed the former requests, and will instead make the rule apply more broadly to all federal contractors.

“This is a tremendous victory for those of us who believe that as people of faith we should be exemplary, not exempted,” said Rev. Fred Davie, Executive Vice President at Union Theological Seminary. Rev. Davie will be a guest when the President signs the executive order on Monday. “Religions of the world across the ages have engendered and supported discrimination and bigotry from deceptively genteel to utterly horrific. 

[T]he order will actually effect over a million LGBT workers in the United States, and will be the largest expansion of LGBT workers’ rights in the nation’s history. In 29 states, it is legal to fire someone for being gay. In 34, an employer can fire someone with no recourse if they are transgender. 

The executive order will keep in place an exemption established by President George W. Bush in 2002 that allows religious contractors to favor employees with the same religion for religious roles.

Dear Evanglicals - An Open Letter to Those Played for Fools

As Evangelical leaders and their political whores in the Republican Party increasingly embrace ignorance and reject modernity itself, many of the sheeple they con preach to are being played for fools and lead down a path to self-marginalization.    Frank Schaeffer has an open letter to Evangelicals at Huffington Post that looks at the manner in which these people are being played and challenges them to wake up and open their eyes - and minds.  Will they listen?  Probably not, but thankfully, more and more of the younger generations are walking away from their poisonous beliefs.  Here are excerpts from the letter:

Your real enemies are not progressive Christian/Atheist/Backsliders like me. Your real enemies are some of the influential people who pretend to be your friends. They are your Nemesis.

I'll bet the board members of Gordon College, Wheaton College and Christianity Today have no idea about the real reasons behind a bad set of choices they were duped into making in order to serve a purely political agenda masquerading as a "religious liberty" issue. They've been had.

A day is fast approaching where ordinary evangelicals will be cursing Wheaton College, Gordon College and the other evangelical establishment bastions that demanded the right to discriminate against women and gays as a matter of "religious liberty."

So many evangelicals live in bubbles that they have no idea how the real world functions. They are going to find out that outside the comfortable inner circle of home-school, Christian school, Christian radio, TV and publishing, churches and Bible study groups, to the larger world people who want to discriminate against gays and women are weird outcasts to be shunned.

I mean what young man or woman wants their university degree to be from a pariah institution? Who wants to teach someplace that has the moral standing of the old apartheid regime of South Africa?

The argument will soon be made that if Christians can "legally" discriminate against gays and women then secular institutions should be able to exercise their consciences and discriminate against evangelicals. Just wait.

[T]he evangelical institutions that are making the anti-women and anti-gay headlines are going to discover that their more moderate religious and secular peers are going to punish them. They will also be losing their young people in droves.

Re-accreditation? "Forget it, you have a policy of discrimination against gays and women." Find sports teams to play your students? Want your professors to publish and deliver papers at national conferences? "Forget it, you have a policy of discrimination against gays and women..."

Neoconservative activists like George and his Beckett Fund, and Colson helped set the stage for the Tea Party and what should be called the Biblical Patriarchy Restoration Movement. They gave a gloss of intellectual respectability to what was a theocratic wish list targeting gays and women as a means to target President Obama and the Democratic Party. That's the real game. It is a game worthy of Karl Rove, in fact it is his game...

The aim was not freedom for religion but a chance to deliver a blow against a president that many evangelicals have never accepted as legitimate but that the racist Republican establishment hates. The result risks fulfilling Justice Ginsburg's "minefield" prediction where the rule of law and equal protection fade into chaos.

The larger American community will not stand for this. Most evangelicals won't either. They are good  loving people. Wheaton, Gordon and Christianity Today Magazine at al are mere tools in a larger fight. Now they are marked as bastions of intolerance. They will pay a heavy price. They have been abused. That is a shame. Evangelicals deserved better. The cause of Christ did too.

In point of fact, Gordon College is already paying a price for its demands for t he right to discriminate.    The City of Salem, Massachusetts is severing all ties to the college because Gordon's discriminatory policies violate the city's non-discrimination policies.  Hopefully, more cities and even states will join this tide and severe ties and cut funding to discriminatory "christian" colleges and universities.  Back2Stonewall has details on the City of Salem's decision to dump Gordon College:

In response to Gordon College President D. Michael Lindsay’s recent actions signing a letter in support of an religious exemption from federal regulations that bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as the current policies at Gordon College that require strict adherence to behavioral standards for students, faculty and staff that are discriminatory towards LGBT individuals -the city of Salem. Massachusetts has terminated all contracts with the college.

In a letter from Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll to Gordon College President Lindsay:

“I am truly disappointed in the stance you have taken, which plainly discriminates against the rights of LGBT individuals, both on and off campus. These actions fly in the face of the City of Salem’s Non-Discrimination Ordinance, which prohibits our municipality from contracting with entities that maintain discriminatory practices. While I respect your rights to embed religious values on a private college campus, religious freedom does not afford you the right to impose those beliefs upon others and cannot be extended into a publicly owned facility or any management contract for a publicly owned facility, like Old Town Hall. Moreover, I hope you realize how hurtful and offensive these “behavioral standards” are to members of the greater Salem LGBT community, some of whom are Gordon alumni, staff and/or students.

It saddens me to curb our contractual relationship in this manner, despite a long and positive relationship with Gordon College over the years, however, not doing so would be a violation of our Non-Discrimination Ordinance and even more troubling, allow a contractual relationship between the City of Salem and an institution that enables, and now advocates for discrimination against the LGBT community. As Mayor, I most certainly cannot let that stand.”

 Let's hope Regent University and Liberty University soon find themselves as pariahs.

Will Anti-Gay Republicans Now Back ENDA to License Anti-Gay Discrimination

As noted before, many of the leading LGBT rights organizations have withdrawn support for the Senate passed version of ENDA in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in Hobby Lobby which granted Christofascists the right to ignore civil laws they claim violate their right of "religious freedom."  Why the switch?  Because the version of ENDA passed by the U.S. Senate has a religious exemption so broad that a fleet of 18 wheelers could drive through it.  The exemption, combined with Hobby Lobby could in theory undermine LGBT protections in even gay friendly states.  Now, some fear that anti-gay House Republicans may push to pass the Senate version of ENDA with precisely such a goal. A piece by Michelangelo Signorile in Huffington Post looks at this frightening possibility.  It needs to be noted that while gays are the current primary target of  the agenda of special rights from Christofascists, Muslims, Hindus and others could end up finding themselves open to discrimination based on false "religious freedom" claims.  Here are some article highlights:

Last week I wrote about the trap that gay groups may have set for themselves in a post-Hobby Lobby world, having previously backed a broad religious exemption in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). By week's end, most major groups had pulled their support for ENDA, following a few that pulled out before the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision. But believe it or not, right now some Republicans are working feverishly to get support for ENDA in the GOP and try to pass it in the House in this session, with the dangerous religious exemption that caused LGBT groups to withdraw support. 

The irony here is off the charts, but the idea being floated is that Republicans should realize that LGBT rights are inevitable, and that anti-gay GOPers should therefore grab at the chance to pass a bill that could broadly give an exception to religious organizations and the businesses they own and enshrine that discrimination forever. 

As an added bonus, the Supreme Court might view the exemption as a way to expand that allowable discrimination to "closely held," for-profit companies owned by people who have religious objections to gays, as it did in the Hobby Lobby case regarding religious objections to some forms of birth control.
HRC does still back passage of ENDA in this session (as does House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, openly lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin and other Democrats), but in response to the pulling of support by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Transgender Law Center and others, HRC president Chad Griffin wrote in an op-ed last week that the group wants to "narrow" the exemption and also said the community should "throw its weight behind" a comprehensive civil-rights bill.

If ENDA doesn't pass, he wrote, that bill would include employment as well as public accommodations, housing, education and credit -- something a lot of us have been demanding for a long time. However, Griffin didn't give any details or timeline regarding what would be an ambitious undertaking and a massive bill, and he refused to give interviews. And his group does still continue to lobby Republicans to support the current ENDA. 

It's highly unlikely that ENDA will get passed in the House via any option available, with or without the gay groups onboard (and HRC's idea of "narrowing" the exemption would mean going back to the Senate again), but wouldn't it be the nightmare scenario if it did pass, with this exemption, and then LGBT groups had to demand that President Obama veto a bill he and Democrats had heralded for months?

Again, it's highly improbable that it would get to that, but I write this to underscore how this entire episode was amateur hour for the LGBT community. . . . . ENDA should never have been pushed and passed in the Senate with a religious exemption, not in 2013 -- nor should we have even thought of doing that in 2012, 2011, 2010, or, frankly, 20-anything. HRC, in its usual arrogance, and with blinders on, refused to listen to the community and the growing chorus among the grass roots, the people who've experienced the progress we've made on marriage equality and support by the American public and who were saying "no" to an exemption for years.

HRC often needs a check on its myopic, access-driven, win-at-all-costs strategies, especially under a new leadership that refuses to even give interviews to the LGBT press, not responding to requests, its president only speaking to the community via vague, meticulously crafted op-eds.

It is disturbing that once again the egos of those at HRC are putting the rights of LGBT Americans at risk.  Perhaps I need to peel the HRC sticker off of my car!

LGBT Rights Groups Drop Support for ENDA

Rea Carey

In the wake of the ruling in Hobby Lobby which radically expanded religious based rights to discriminate, leading LGBT Rights groups have dropped their support for the Senate passed version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act ("ENDA") which includes an expansive religious exemption.  The fear is that if the Hobby Lobby rational is applied to the exemption, ENDA could become a license to discriminate against LGBT employees - the total opposite of the Act's objective.  Rea Carey of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has an op-ed in The Advocate that lays out why the NGLTF has dropped its support for ENDA.  Here are highlights:

The morning the sun rose after the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, we all woke up in a changed and intensified landscape of religious exemptions being used as an excuse to discriminate. The reality is that while politics is about compromise, some compromises are too great.

After much soul searching, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund has decided to withdraw its support for the current version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. As one of the lead advocates on this bill for 20 years, we do not take this move lightly but we do take it unequivocally — we now oppose this version of ENDA because of its too-broad religious exemption.

Frankly, it is becoming harder and harder for me, for us, to tolerate our own moral and political inconsistencies by protesting the Hobby Lobby decision, then advocating for the current ENDA with its broad religious exemption, and then insisting that the president not include a broad exemption in the upcoming executive order protecting LGBT people working for federal contractors. How can we demand that a woman have coverage for reproductive healthcare at a company but support a bill that allows a lesbian cafeteria worker in the religiously affiliated hospital next door to be fired from her job?

In the last year alone, we have seen a wave of attempted and successful efforts at imposing religious exemptions on issues of reproductive health and LGBT equality on the local, state, and federal level. And it is crystal clear in the week following the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision that the momentum is building on religious exemptions. Not 48 hours after the decision, Pastor Rick Warren joined other faith leaders in a letter to the president asking that he include a broad religious exemption in the contractor executive order. We cannot be complicit in writing such exemptions into federal law.

There is a better alternative: federal nondiscrimination legislation that contains a reasonable religious accommodation. LGBT people should have the same protections as those contained in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Legal equality is legal equality. 

The campaign to create broad religious exemptions for employment protections repeats a pattern we’ve seen before in methodically undermining voting rights, women’s access to reproductive health, and affirmative action.

We are also deeply concerned that ENDA’s broad religious exemption will serve as a template — a new floor, not a ceiling — not only for our work on LGBT nondiscrimination across the country, but also for other issues that affect our community deeply including marriage, access to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, and access to other reproductive health services. We are well aware that there are many states with zero protections for LGBT people. This weighs on us heavily, as does the fact that many LGBT people would be at risk of having no protections with this broad religious exemption. We will all need to double down to move forward on nondiscrimination laws in the states where none exist as we push for federal protections with a fair and equal religious accommodation.

There is nothing inherently inconsistent between religion and living our lives freely as LGBT people. We do not need to settle for a law that has a loophole this large, that will embolden our opposition and that has the potential to curb our progress on other federal, state, and local laws protecting LGBT people and their families.

Carey is 100% on the money in her analysis.  We cannot afford to see passage of a law that could perversely become a vehicle for anti-gay discrimination.

ENDA Would Still Allow Discrimination Against LGBT Workers

While ENDA - the Employment Non-Discrimination Act - which remains stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives thanks to Congressional Republicans would be an improvement for those of us living in states like Virginia who currently have zero employment protections.  However, as passed by the U.S. Senate ENDA continues to contain a religious exemption that is so broad that one could drive a convoy of eighteen wheelers through it.   Sadly, the exemption is symptomatic of the undeserved and corrosive deference still give to religion.  Imagine if laws barring discrimination on age, national origin or even religious based discrimination contained a similar exemption and one quickly sees the ridiculousness of including such an exemption in a non-discrimination law.  The irony, of course, is that if anything is NOT an immutable characteristic, it is religious belief which ultimately is 100% a choice.  A piece in The Nation looks at how ENDA, if passed by Congress, would still give license to anti-gay discrimination in the work place. 

Most Americans workers have no protection from being fired because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). This fact comes as a shock to many people. Around three-quarters of the public assumes that LGBT workers already have federal job protection. But they don’t. Legislation to address that problem has been kicking around Congress for forty years—it is now called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA—but Congress has not succeeded in passing it.

In 1974, when the first federal bill to protect LGBT workers was introduced, the landscape for equality was unfriendly—and things got worse before they got better. But they did get better. The military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, enacted in 1993, was repealed in 2010, and gay people now serve openly in the armed forces. The Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996, but it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2013. Now nineteen states and the District of Columbia recognize full marriage equality, with more to come.

This progress has made the lack of employment protection for LGBT people nonsensical. We can hardly imagine that a gay man could serve his country in the military, only to get fired for being gay when he returns to his civilian job. But in most parts of the country, that is exactly what could happen.

In the face of continued congressional inaction, President Obama has announced that he will issue an executive order to prohibit most federal contractors from discriminating against workers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity—protections that are already in place for race, gender and other categories. The president’s action is important, but it can only do so much. Congress must still enact ENDA.

But what should ENDA look like? The right answer to that question is simple: LGBT workers should have the same protection that other workers already enjoy under the 1964 Civil Rights Act—no more, no less. But something is getting in the way of that simple answer: the forty years of history that we have been dragging around with us like the wreckage of a derelict ship.

[O]nly one piece of flotsam is left in the statute: a provision called the “religious exemption.” Among federal anti-discrimination laws, it is unique to ENDA. And that is the very reason that it must be stricken. At issue is when religious organizations should get special exemptions from civil rights laws. Should they be allowed to discriminate in some circumstances when other employers cannot? 

One could take a range of approaches to this question. On one end, there is the view that the only special exemption should be the one that the Constitution actually requires: that churches and religious organizations remain free to choose ministers and other employees with ministerial duties free from any interference from government. On the other end, we have recently seen legislation like Arizona’s SB1062 that would create exceedingly broad religious exemptions that would even apply to for-profit businesses. 

We cannot have one approach to religious exemptions for discrimination based on gender or disability and a different approach for discrimination based on race or sexual orientation. To do so would be to accept the idea that some types of equality are inherently at odds with religion. That dangerous argument has been misused many times in our history. The unequal treatment of women, racial segregation, even slavery itself—all have been justified by religious doctrine.

The current draft of ENDA violates this important principle. It contains a broad religious exemption that takes protections away from LGBT people—and only from them. If you are a maintenance worker at a religious organization, you cannot be fired for being white or a woman, but if ENDA is not fixed, you could be fired for being gay. 

If that detritus were included in the law, then ENDA would stand for the intolerable idea that equal treatment of LGBT people is inherently incompatible with religious belief. We are long past the point where it is acceptable for Congress to endorse such polarizing stereotypes. This last vestige of appeasement from an earlier time must now be removed from ENDA.

All things considered, across the march of history religion has proven to be a pervasive evil that has brought wars, death and violence - it is still doing so at this very moment in Iraq - and it is far past time that it lose its undeserved deference.  The religious exemption needs to be stripped from ENDA and all non-discrimination laws.

Douche Bag GOP Congressman Doubts LGBT Workplace Discrimination Exists

The batshitery - or is just plan unbridled bigotry - of some in the Republican Party sometimes defies belief.  A case in point is Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) (pictured above) who has stated that he doesn't believe that LGBT individuals face work place discrimination even as the Christofascists in the GOP base repeatedly state that they want to retain the right to fire LGBT employees at will.  It's difficult to tell whether Cramer is simply a complete idiot (a distinct possibility in today's GOP) or simply a craven political whore to the hate merchants of the GOP base.  Either way, Cramer's head is so far up his ass it's a wonder he hasn't suffocated!  Here are highlights from the Huffington Post:

A Republican congressman said he's not sure that workplace discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people exists -- because he's never gotten a phone call about it.

"I'm not even sure that this is a problem. I have to be honest, I don't get many, if any. I don't know that I've ever received a phone call in my office from somebody that says they've been discriminated against based on their sexual orientation," Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told Bismarck station KFYR on Tuesday.

Cramer is a first-term member of Congress who is facing a challenge from Democrat George Sinner. On Monday, the White House announced officials would draft an executive order that would bar federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Cramer added that he believes the White House's move was meant for political gain, and companies should be left to set their own policies. 

Studies have found that workplace discrimination is a persistent problem for many LGBT individuals. Roughly one in five LGBT adults surveyed by the Pew Research Center in 2013 said that they had been unfairly treated by an employer.

Ninety percent of transgender people say that they have faced harassment in the workplace because of their gender identity, according to one study. In the same poll, 26 percent of transgender Americans surveyed said that they had lost a job because of their gender identity.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, 21 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and 18 states and D.C. also bar discrimination based on gender identity.

Like many in the GOP, to Cramer, facts do not matter.  As one who lost my job for being gay, I know first hand that Cramer is full of s*it.

Far Right in GOP And Christofascists Attack Obama for ENDA Executive Order

The text of President Barack Obama's proposed executive order barring employment discrimination against LGBT employees has not even yet been released and already the Christofascists and their political whores in the GOP are shrieking and carrying on.  Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah is demanding that any executive order contain a religious exemption that is so broad that it is tantamount to a grant of special rights to Christofascists.   The Washington Blade looks at the exemption that Hatch supported in the Senate version of ENDA:

Under the current version of ENDA before Congress, religious institutions, like churches or religious hospitals and schools, could continue to discriminate against LGBT workers in non-ministerial positions even if the bill were to become law. The religious exemption is broader than similar exemptions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for categories of race, gender, religion and national origin. 

In my view, the larger problem with such an exemption is that it bears no relation to the intention behind the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which sought to guarantee that no citizen would (i) be forced to support a religion that they did not adhere to or (ii) find limitations placed on their right to freely worship.  In fact, an exemption such as what Hatch wants would allow the Christofascists to trample of the religious freedom rights of LGBT citizens who have a constitutional right to NOT adhere to Christofascist and far right Muslim beliefs. 

Meanwhile, the hate merchants at Family Research Council are beside themselves over Obama's partial end run around the bar to ENDA that their boot licking GOP members of the House of Representatives have maintained to date.  Right on cue, FRC is whining that the proposed executive order is an attack on Christians and an attack on free speech.   As is ALWAYS the case with FRC it wants special rights for Christofascists.  Here is a sample of the disingenuous drivel and lies on its blog page:

[T]he detrimental impact on employers' and employees' constitutional freedoms of religion, speech, and association.  

Today's announced executive order will give activists a license to challenge their employers whenever they feel aggrieved, exposing those employers to threats of costly legal proceedings and the potential of jeopardizing future contracts. Furthermore, by requiring federal contractors to consider characteristics and behaviors related to a person's sexual orientation or gender identity, this policy will make contractors liable for protecting actual or perceived self-disclosed and fluid identities that may not even be known.  

I'd suggest that if FRC doesn't want protections for LGBT employees, let's open the door for employers to fire far right Christians because  their behavior is clearly a "choice" and is not an immutable characteristic.    Let's treat the "godly folk" the same way that they demand to be allowed to treat others.  I may sound peevish, but I am SO OVER the undeserved deference that religion is afforded even though it has caused more wars, deaths and unbridled hatred than almost any other thing across history.

 

Obama to Sign LGBT Nondiscrimination Executive Order

With ENDA blocked in the House of Representatives, Barack Obama has finally indicated that he will sign an LGBT nondiscrimination executive order applicable across the federal government and federal government contractors.   In my view, the move is long over due and, the cynic in me suspects that Obama has finally made this move in the hope of re-energizing LGBT voters - and donors to the Democratic Party - in the run up to the 2014 midterm elections.  Sadly, it is a pattern that we have seen before with Obama.    Meanwhile, it goes without saying that the Christofascists will be wailing and letting out spittle flecked shrieks that Obama is destroying America.  MetroWeekly looks at this new development.  Here are excerpts:

President Barack Obama will take executive action to prohibit federal contractors from LGBT workplace discrimination.

According to a White House official, Obama has directed his staff to prepare an executive order for his signature prohibiting federal contractors from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity — a move long sought by LGBT-rights advocates that builds upon Obama’s legacy as the strongest LGBT ally to ever occupy the White House.

“The action would build upon existing protections, which generally prohibit federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” the White House official told Metro Weekly. “This is consistent with the President’s views that all Americans, LGBT or not, should be treated with dignity and respect.”

For more than two years Obama’s White House has been forced to defend a broken campaign promise made by Obama when he was a candidate for president in February 2008. It was then that Obama filled out a presidential-candidate questionnaire for the Houston GLBT Political Caucus indicating he would support a nondiscrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity for federal contractors.

At the beginning of this year Obama announced a shifting strategy to use his pen to take executive action when Congress won’t act. While that strategy has been applied to minimum wage, with Obama signing an executive order to raise minimum wage for federal contractors while the White House still pushes for federal legislation raising the minimum wage for all Americans, and to narrowing the income gap between genders, the White House has found itself in a contradictory position on the executive order for LGBT federal contractors.

The Senate approved ENDA 64-32 last November, but the the bill has languished in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives where Speaker John Boehner has voiced his opposition to the bill and refused to allow it to come up for a vote, although the bill has continued to gain bipartisan support as recently as last week.

It is not yet clear when Obama will sign the executive order, but with an appearance scheduled Tuesday at the Democratic National Committee’s LGBT gala in New York City and the White House’s annual LGBT Pride Month reception set for June 30, it seems likely Obama will address his decision to sign the executive order in the coming days.

When Obama does attach his signature to that executive order, it will further cement his legacy on LGBT rights. The first sitting American president to openly endorse same-sex marriage, he has all but ensured that a Democrat will never again be able to run for the White House without supporting marriage equality.

I do appreciate what Obama has done.  I simply find it disheartening that on every advancement, he has needed to be dragged forward instead of demonstrating leadership. 

Presidential Proclamation: LGBT Pride Month

Brace yourself for more spittle flecked hysteria from the Christofascists and claims that Barack Obama is nothing less than demonic.  Why?  Because Barack Obama has signed a presidential proclamation designating June as LGBT Pride Month.   Worse yet, at least in the minds of the "godly Christian" folk is that Obama acknowledges the struggles faced by LGBT Americans and expresses his support for LGBT equality.  Joe My God provides highlights from the proclamation:

"As progress spreads from State to State, as justice is delivered in the courtroom, and as more of our fellow Americans are treated with dignity and respect -- our Nation becomes not only more accepting, but more equal as well. During Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month, we celebrate victories that have affirmed freedom and fairness, and we recommit ourselves to completing the work that remains.

"Last year, supporters of equality celebrated the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act, a ruling which, at long last, gave loving, committed families the respect and legal protections they deserve. In keeping with this decision, my Administration is extending family and spousal benefits -- from immigration benefits to military family benefits -- to legally married same-sex couples.

"My Administration proudly stands alongside all those who fight for LGBT rights. Here at home, we have strengthened laws against violence toward LGBT Americans, taken action to prevent bullying and harassment, and prohibited discrimination in housing and hospitals. Despite this progress, LGBT workers in too many States can be fired just because of their sexual orientation or gender identity; I continue to call on the Congress to correct this injustice by passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

"This month, as we mark 45 years since the patrons of the Stonewall Inn defied an unjust policy and awakened a nascent movement, let us honor every brave leader who stood up, sat in, and came out, as well as the allies who supported them along the way. Following their example, let each of us speak for tolerance, justice, and dignity -- because if hearts and minds continue to change over time, laws will too.

"NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2014 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to eliminate prejudice everywhere it exists, and to celebrate the great diversity of the American people.

"IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand fourteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth." - Barack Obama.

Of course, if Obama was serious about ENDA protections, he would sign an ENDA executive order.

Barack Obama's Unmet Promise on Discrimination

As I have noted before in posts, securing  workplace non-discrimination protections for LGBT individuals is high on my priority list.  Especially since I experienced first hand what it is like to suddenly find oneself unemployed simply because you're gay.  From my experience, we cannot trust businesses to do the right thing and even where some of the business owners are "friends," too often they turn out to be fair weather friends at best and will stand by silently as careers are ruined due to religious based bigotry or the cowardice of those who could object but fear "rocking the boat." Sadly, despite his promises to address employment discrimination injustices, Barack Obama has done nothing on this front.  Yesterday, the New York Times called on Obama to sign an executive order ENDA.  Here are editorial highlights:

President Obama has made repeated use of executive orders to advance the administration’s goals when Republicans in Congress refused to act. Last week, he signed two orders requiring modest but important steps by federal contractors to narrow the wage gap between female and male employees.

These useful measures made even more glaring his failure to honor a 2008 campaign pledge to ban discrimination by federal contractors based on sexual orientation or gender identity. A long-delayed measure to outlaw such discrimination by all employers, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, cleared the Senate five months ago with Mr. Obama’s support, but House Republican leaders are in no hurry to follow suit. John Boehner, the House speaker, has said that a law against that sort of discrimination would be “frivolous.”

Mr. Obama said in November that workplace discrimination “needs to stop, because, in the United States of America, who you are and who you love should never be a fireable offense.” An executive order barring discrimination by federal contractors would extend badly needed job protections to more than 11 million employees who work in states that lack such protections and whose companies fail to provide them voluntarily, according to the Williams Institute at the U.C.L.A. School of Law.

What Mr. Obama needs to do is act on his principles and issue such an order, without the religious exemption that was put into the Senate bill to lure Republican votes.

[A]s the Human Rights Campaign rightly noted, an “executive order first issued by President Johnson still, today, provides important and unique protections for employees of federal contractors against discrimination based on race, sex, religion — despite the fact that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects against such discrimination in workplaces across the country.” The group argues that even if the Employment Non-Discrimination Act were enacted, an executive order would be needed to provide the same range of remedies currently available to other protected categories of federal workers.

The best way for Mr. Obama to advance the issue and prod the House to do the right thing is to lead by example, not by waiting.