ENDA Is Unacceptable

Back in June I wrote how I could no long support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that the Senate passed. The religious exemption is too board and it exceeds what is allowed in Tile VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Today a number of LGBT and civil rights organizations also pulled their support of the bill. GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defender) issued this press release today…

July 8, 2014
Joint Statement on Withdrawal of Support for ENDAand Call for Equal Workplace Protections for LGBT People

The following national organizations have signed onto the below statement:
American Civil Liberties Union; Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders; Lambda Legal;
National Center for Lesbian Rights; and Transgender Law Center.

The provision in the current version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that allows religious organizations to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity has long been a source of significant concern to us.  Given the types of workplace discrimination we see increasingly against LGBT people, together with the calls for greater permission to discriminate on religious grounds that followed immediately upon the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, it has become clear that the inclusion of this provision is no longer tenable.  It would prevent ENDA from providing protections that LGBT people desperately need and would make very bad law with potential further negative effects.  Therefore, we are announcing our withdrawal of support for the current version of ENDA.
[…]
Our ask is a simple one:  Do not give religiously affiliated employers a license to discriminate against LGBT people when they have no such right to discriminate based on race, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information.  Religiously affiliated organizations are allowed to make hiring decisions based on their religion, but nothing in federal law authorizes discrimination by those organizations based on any other protected characteristic, and the rule should be the same for sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.  Religious organizations are free to choose their ministers or faith leaders, and adding protections for sexual orientation and gender identity or expression will not change that.

Meanwhile the New Civil Rights Movement reported that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) still supports ENDA,

Today, after the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), the Transgender Law Center, and the AFL-CIO's Pride at Work all announced they are dropping support of ENDA after the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling, HRC again stood firm.

“HRC supports ENDA because it will provide essential workplace protections to millions of LGBT people,” Sainz [HRC vice president] said again today.

We, the trans-community have won a number of court cases that have ruled that we are covered by Title VII and also a number of federal agencies have also ruled that we are covered the Civil Rights Act. Agencies such as the EEOC, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Education all have said that it is against the law to discriminate based on gender identity.

There is a court case where a gay man is suing his former employer for firing him because he is gay. He claims that Title VII also protects him because “sexual stereotypes” which the Supreme Court said was prohibited in the Price Waterhouse case. If he wins it will also mean that sexual orientation is covered under Title VII.

Therefore, ENDA would weaken the protection that we have under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A transgender nurse would be protected if she was working in a religious owned hospital, but ENDA with strip that protection. When it comes to human rights we cannot allow any more Three-Fifths Compromises

The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) has been silent, will they also join the organizations that have pulled their support of ENDA?

Update 7/9/14 6:00PM
I just found this on the NCTE website about their ENDA Lobby Day...

NCTE, in partnership with six local and national LGBT organizations, is excited to announce the 2014 Transgender Lobby Day taking place in Washington D.C., July 14-15, 2014. All are invited to help enact explicit federal job protections for transgender people. With transgender people leading the effort, we can educate members of Congress about transgender issues and move a modified version of ENDA forward (one without the overly broad religious exemption). We will also be pressing for the Student Non-Discrimination Act. 

So evidently they also do not support the current ENDA.