Sunday, November 30, 2014

The Hate Mongers – Part 2

This time they are attacking President Obama’s EEOC general counsel David Lopez who is up for reconfirmation in the Senate and he has the right wing conservatives in a tizzy over the Macy’s Decision which resulted in gender identity being covered under Title VII and also the EEOC lawsuit against two companies for violating to transgender employee’s rights under title VII.
Right-Wing Group Targets Trans-Friendly Federal NomineeDavid Lopez, the current EEOC general counsel awaiting Senate confirmation for his second term, has built a career fighting for the rights of LGBT and disabled workers. Now the Family Research Council wants him to pay for it.
Advocate
BY Sunnivie Brydum
November 25, 2014

It was only a matter of time before the anti-LGBT forces in Washington set their sights on the trans-inclusive record of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission leader nominated for another term with the federal agency.

And in a Tuesday fundraising pitch, that's exactly what the right-wing Family Research Council, certified as an anti-LGBT hate group, did — employing discredited, transphobic scare tactics in an effort to drum up opposition to the reconfirmation of the EEOC's general counsel, an attorney who helped file landmark federal lawsuits challenging antitrans discrimination.
The head of the “family” organization that is in a lather over the EEOC lawsuit is Tony Perkins, he called Obama’s reappointment of David Lopez a "a dagger aimed at freedom of religion."
But to hear FRC explain it, the lawsuits are a surreptitious effort to pass the long-languishing Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which has stalled in Congress since the Senate passed it with a bipartisan majority last November. The legislation, introduced in every Congress except one since 1996, would make it illegal to fire, refuse to hire, or decline to promote someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. As the bill was passed in November, it included a "religious exemption" that would allow faith-based employers to disregard the federal law. That exemption has been critiqued as overly broad, prompting several major LGBT organizations to withdraw support for the legislation in its current form.
[…]
That simply isn't true. Perkins's rhetoric is characteristically reactionary, calling ENDA "one of the most dangerous proposed laws ever." If ENDA were to pass, Perkins contends that "'free exercise of religion' will become a meaningless phrase" and Christian employees will be required "to affirm same-sex propaganda at work — and thus deny important aspects of their faith to keep their jobs."
These right wing conservatives want to expand the religious exemptions that anybody would be able to say they are not obey the non-discrimination laws because it is against their religion and they will not even have to prove that it is against their religion.

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