Pres.Obama Extends Protections to Gay Workers with No Exceptions
President Obama plans to sign an executive order on Monday barring discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees of companies that do federal government work, according to White House officials. But it will not include a religious exemption many faith organizations had requested, the officials said.
The order would also for the first time explicitly protect federal employees from discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
After a setback in the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby case, Mr. Obama was facing pressure from religious groups demanding to be excluded from the long-promised executive order.
A group of major faith organizations, including some of Mr. Obama’s allies, had said he should consider adding an exemption for groups whose religious beliefs oppose homosexuality. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the court ruled that family-run corporations with religious objections could be exempted from providing employees with insurance coverage for contraception.
In a July 1 letter to Mr. Obama sent the day after the Hobby Lobby case was decided, leaders of religious groups wrote that “we are asking that an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of faith communities whose religious identity and beliefs motivate them to serve those in need.”
The effort behind the letter was organized by Michael Wear, who worked in the White House faith-based initiative during Mr. Obama’s first term and directed the president’s faith outreach in the 2012 campaign. The letter, which called for a “robust religious exemption” in the planned executive order, was also signed by the Rev. Larry Snyder, the chief executive of Catholic Charities U.S.A.; Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church, who delivered the invocation at Mr. Obama’s first inauguration; and Stephan Bauman, president of World Relief, an aid group affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals.
He described the letter as a request from “friends of the administration” to ensure that the executive order provides “robust” protection of religious service organizations that uphold religious-based moral standards for their staff members, whether Catholic, Jewish or Muslim.
To give an example, faith leaders said a Catholic charity group that believes sex outside heterosexual marriage is a sin should not be denied government funding because it refused to employ a leader who was openly gay. Gay-rights groups countered that it would be unacceptable to allow religious organizations receiving taxpayer money to refuse to hire employees simply because they were gay, and said they did not expect the White House to provide such an exclusion.
“Activists have every expectation that this executive order will be issued without any further religious exemption,” Fred Sainz, vice president for communications and marketing at the Human Rights Campaign, said at the time.
JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
Comments