Now that the Department of Labor has issued its final rule on the implementation of President Obama’s executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees. House Republicans seeing a chance to screw with not only Obama but also the gays are now trying to stall the order’s enactment.
House Education and Workforce Committee Chair John Kline, a Republican from Minnesota, and Rep. Tim Walberg, the Republican chair of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, made the request for a 60-day public comment period for the rule in a letter to the head of the office responsible for enforcing it. “[W]e understand the public was not afforded an opportunity to submit comments as provided under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA),” Kline and Walberg wrote to Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Director Patricia Shiu. “Public comment is essential to all rulemakings.” After laying out their argument, they write, “We therefore urge OFCCP to withdraw its final regulation submitted to [Office of Management and Budget] … so the process for implementing [Obama’s executive order] can be done with the transparency and public participation typically afforded under the APA.” They ask for a response from Shiu “no later than December 17, 2014.”
This is a preview of what the next 2 years will be like. Add the Senate to the House.
There is something seriously mentally wrong with Republican politicians. And worse the people who voted them into office
ExxonMobil, the world’s largest energy corporation, that holds millions of dollars in federal contracts and whose board and shareholders who know how to buy oil stocks more than anyone else has year after year voted against granting LGBT workplace protections to it workers, has announced that it will complywith the executive order signed by President Obama on Monday.
Exxon, which according to government records won more than $480 million in federal contracts in 2013 and more than $8 billion since 2006, has long resisted pressure from civil rights groups and shareholders to enumerate such protections in its formal policy. The world’s biggest oil and gas company by market value will continue to “abide by the law,” spokesman Alan Jeffers said Tuesday. He wouldn’t say if that meant changing the language in the company’s formal equal employment opportunity policy, but stressed that Exxon prohibits “discrimination on any basis.” n May, Exxon shareholders voted down a proposal for the 15th consecutive year to add such language to its equal employment opportunity statement, maintaining that the business standards stated on a company web site ensure protections without having to specifically name them.
One of America’s most odious corporations, dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
LOVING IT!
Can’t wait for Tony PerKKKins’ and Bryan Fischer’s head to explode and announce the subsequent boycott of Exxon Mobil.
Defying the Constitution, which gives only Congress the authority to make laws, President Obama decreed that anyone who does business with the federal government must adopt written policies that specifically mandate special protections for “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.” Obama’s love affair with homosexuality will impact some 24,000 companies with 28 million workers, or one-fifth of the U.S. workforce. More alarming, his order discriminates against Christians.
In most cases, the government uses private and locally-owned civilian businesses to provide services. Examples include construction companies (carpenters, plumbers, electricians, etc.), health care professions, retail vendors (Walmart, Menard’s, restaurant chains), hotels and airlines. Without an exemption, Obama is ordering Christians to embrace sin and forfeit their faith convictions if they want to have the same business opportunities as non-Christian businesses. Obama has overstepped his authority and treats Christians as second-class citizens.
This is the email that the AFA is urging its followers to send:
I am deeply concerned by your executive order this week giving minorities the same rights and privileges that Christians have enjoyed for half a century, based solely on who they have steamy, wildly inventive, and deeply satisfying sex with. I believe all minorities should be treated as non-white, non-Christians were treated during the Middle Ages, but you have given preferential treatment to a fabulous lifestyle and not our chosen philosophy. More concerning is your decision to ignore the numerous pleas from KKK-affiliated hate groups to include exemptions for those who hold deep religious prejudices. In essence, you are discriminating against bigots and placing them at a great disadvantage when bidding to do business with the federal government. I am sending a copy of this message to my members of Congress, urging them to overturn your executive order by whatever means necessary, including fasting and holding their breath, to rein in your totally legal order and insure that Christians are free to practice their faith while pushing lesser Americans to the side.
By the way the AFA action alert does invite one to “edit or add your own text” Lets go do some creative writing gurls!
About 20 so-called “religious leaders” sent a letter to President Obama on Tuesday, on the heels of the Supreme Courts horrendous Hobby Lobby ruling petitioning for a “robust religious exemption” to President Obama’s announced executive order that would make it illegal for all federal contractors to discriminate in the workplace against LGBT people
“An executive order that does not include a religious exemption will significantly and substantively hamper the work of some religious organizations that are best equipped to serve in common purpose with the federal government.,” it said. “When the capacity of religious organizations is limited, the common good suffers.” […]
“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.”
Longtime LGBT activist, and former Executive Director of both the NYC Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project and the NGLTF (when they actually did something) released the followinf statement on how disastrous it would be for the LGBT community should the Hobby Lobby case influence a religious exemption to President Obama’s executive order:
“Hobby Lobby dramatically escalates the harm that will be caused if President Obama succumbs to growing pressure from religious and anti-gay forces and (with implicit or explicit approval from HRC) puts an ENDA-like religious exemption in the promised Executive Order (EO) to prohibit anti-LGBT discrimination by federal contractors. While largely under the radar, this is, in fact, a crisis situation.
“Such an exemption would have been bad enough before Hobby Lobby, but the decision makes it even more deadly. The Hobby Lobby majority said the decision shouldn’t be read to undermine employment nondiscrimination laws. BUT if the EO contains the ENDA exemption, there’s nothing to stop the reasoning in Hobby Lobby from having full force and effect in justifying anti-LGBT discrimination by federal contractors – pushing the door even more widely open for discrimination against our people for essentially any reason whatsoever.
“The only acceptable religious exemption is the one long-contained in Title VII. Anything else can spell disaster for years to come, including profoundly weakening the impact of future federal nondiscrimination laws and our hopes to secure meaningful civil rights protections in the 29 states that still lack them. There is no moral or political justification for President Obama to cave and endorse LGBT people having less protections from discrimination than other Americans. This issue is not a side show; it is core to our equality.”
Exactly.
Thank you Matt Foreman for speaking out while others *cough*HRC and Chad Hunter Griffin *cough* remain silent.
Now the question is what will President Obama do? Will he be the fierce leader that everyone makes him out to be or will he prove to have no backbone and fold?.
So much is riding on his decision lets hope that he does whats right.
“After 30 days of nonstop, in-your-face celebration, the White House is capping off ‘gay pride’ month with its biggest gift yet. Next Monday, the pot of gold at the end of this President’s rainbow is an executive order giving special workplace benefits to the sexually confused. For the far-Left, it caps off a long fight to get the administration to do what Congress has not: order employers to put aside their profits, principles, and practices in the name of political correctness. The President’s order implementing part of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) — once considered ‘too radical’ even for his own party — forces government contractors and subcontractors to hire gays, lesbians, transvestites, and transsexuals — regardless of their legally protected morals. This level of coercion is nothing less than viewpoint blackmail — and from the federal government no less!” – Family Research Council hate group leader and “alleged” *cough-cough* white supremacist Tony Perkins
“Special Workplace Benefits” Oh you mean like the ones given to “religion” under the 1964 Civil Rights Act?
