UPDATED: After Hobby Lobby, Seven Top LGBT And Civil Rights Orgs Drop Support For ENDA
Seven of the nation’s top LGBT and civil rights organizations today have announced they are withdrawing support for ENDA after the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling.
After 40 years, the LGBT community in part has decided that not only is ENDA not good enough, it’s potentially dangerous because the legislation contains strong carve outs for religious organizations. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, ENDA could become a license to discriminate rather than the legal protection it was designed to be.
In a dramatic move today, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force announced it was dropping support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Hours later, a coalition of five LGBT legal and civil rights groups — the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the Transgender Law Center — made a similar announcement. (Pride at Work announced they are dropping support after this article was published — see below.)
The coalition of five groups calls their request “a simple one.”
UPDATE:Â HRC Charts Lone Course, Reiterates Support For ENDA Despite Religious Exemptions
“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,” the group say in a joint statement just released. “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.”
They say their “concerns are not hypothetical” and that “the American people oppose efforts to misuse religious liberty as an excuse to discriminate against LGBT people.”
Increasingly, this is what employment discrimination against LGBT people looks like. Take the example of Matthew Barrett. In July 2013, Matthew was offered a job as food services director at Fontbonne Academy, a college prep high school in Milton, Massachusetts that is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston. Fontbonne Academy has employees and admits students of various faiths. Yet, two days after Matthew listed his husband as his emergency contact on the standard employment paperwork, and despite twenty years of work in the food services industry, his job offer was rescinded. Although nothing about the food services job involved religious rituals or teaching, Matthew was told by an administrator that the school was unable to hire him because “the Catholic religion doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage.†The current version of ENDA would authorize this sexual orientation discrimination.
The groups add that until the “discriminatory exemption is removed so that anti-LGBT discrimination is treated the same as race, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information under federal workplace laws,” they think “ENDA should not move forward in Congress.”
That request will likely be granted, as Speaker John Boehner has stated he believes LGBT people — as do the majority of Americans, wrongly — are already protected and can’t be fired for being LGBT. Boehner refuses to bring ENDA to the floor for a vote.
“In addition,” the coalition states, “we will oppose any similar provisions at the state and local level. We are hopeful that the many members of Congress who support this historic, critically important legislation will agree that singling out LGBT people for an unequal and unfair exemption from basic workplace protection falls unacceptably short of the civil rights standards that have served our nation well against other types of discrimination for fifty years. We stand ready and eager to work with them to achieve the long-sought goal of explicit, effective federal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people.”
Rea Carey, Executive Director, Task Force Action Fund, adds:
“The campaign to create broad religious exemptions for employment protections repeats a pattern we¹ve seen before in methodically undermining voting rights, women¹s access to reproductive health and affirmative action. It is time for fair minded people to block this momentum, rather than help speed it into law. We need new federal non-discrimination 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.”
UPDATE I: HRC releases statement in support of ENDA
UPDATE II: Pride at Work joins in withdrawing support from ENDA
Image by Tim Evanson via Flickr
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The U.S. Capitol Police and the Senate Sergeant at Arms on Friday jointly issued a statement warning they “anticipate” Trump protests across the country. The statement is not time-specific, and it states it has no information on “credible threats,” but some Democratic offices are allowing staffers to work from home Friday and Tuesday.
“The Sergeant at Arms and United States Capitol Police (USCP) anticipate demonstration activity across the country related to the indictment of former President Trump. While law enforcement is not tracking any specific, credible threats against the Capitol or state offices, there is potential for demonstration activity. USCP is working with law enforcement partners, so you may observe a greater law enforcement presence on Capitol Hill,” the statement reads.
“The SAA and USCP are monitoring the potential nationwide impacts to Senate state offices,” it adds.
The House Sergeant at Arms was conspicuously absent from the statement. Speaker Kevin McCarthy has control over that office.
READ MORE: Trump Trial Could Go Well Into the 2024 Election – Or Possibly Even Past It: Former Prosecutor
Additionally, Axios is reporting, “several House Democrats are allowing staffers to work from home as a safety precaution,” noting that “the memory of Trump supporters ransacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 is still fresh on the mind.”
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) is allowing staff to work from home for safety reasons. She told Axios, “I don’t ever want to see a Jan. 6 again.”
“I’ve been in the Trump hate tunnel, Donald Trump has gone after me, and quite frankly I don’t have security. I don’t have entourages.”
She’s not the only Democrat to raise concerns.
“Much of the language from the former President and his devotees is similar to what inspired Jan. 6th,” U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips said. “I’m concerned about safety for my colleagues and my staff.”
READ MORE: ‘Lighting the Match’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Blasted for Off the Rails Rant Defending Trump
Meanwhile, House Republicans are issuing full-throated support for Trump and calling for protests.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was called out by name in a six-page letter Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sent to Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan Friday morning, announced she will be in New York on Tuesday to support Trump when he is arraigned. She has posted several tweets since Trump was indicted.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy issued a statement Thursday seemingly designed to gin up rage and action in the MAGA base.
“Alvin Bragg has irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our Presidential election. As he routinely frees violent criminals to terrorize the public, he weaponized our sacred system of justice against President Donald Trump. The American people will not tolerate this injustice, and the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account.”
Image by Elvert Barnes via Flickr and a CC license
Donald Trump, and all of America, could spend the next 18 months – or longer – engrossed in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s trial of the ex-president, and that could bring the trial close to Election Day.
That’s according to a former prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, Charles Coleman, who is now a civil rights attorney and MSNBC legal analyst.
Asked by MSNBC’s Chris Jansing, “How long typically might a case like this take?” Coleman offered a two-tiered answer.
“A case like this is usually going to take a year or a year and a half,” Coleman said.
That could be through September of 2024.
READ MORE: ‘Lighting the Match’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Blasted for Off the Rails Rant Defending Trump
“Wow,” a surprised Jansing replied. “So it’s going right up into the campaign.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Coleman. “But it’s important to understand I said a case ‘like this.’ This particular case, I expect may take longer because I am anticipating a number of different legal maneuvers by Donald Trump’s defense team.”
That theoretically means into October of 2024, or longer.
“I do see motions to dismiss at a number of different terms, more likely than not to the point that the judge probably will ultimately end up admonishing them and telling them stop filing motions to dismiss. I think that that’s going to happen,” Coleman explained.
“I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, I do believe that we are going to see an attempt to try to change the venue, in this case outside of somewhere in the five boroughs. All of that is going to extend the time deeper and deeper into election season.”
Reuters agrees, reporting Friday morning, “any potential trial is still at minimum more than a year away, legal experts said, raising the possibility that the former U.S. president could face a jury in a Manhattan courtroom during or even after the 2024 presidential campaign, as he seeks a return to the White House.”
And because “Trump’s case is far from typical,” Reuters notes, his trial could extend “past Election Day in November 2024.”
RIGHT WING EXTREMISM
‘Lighting the Match’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Blasted for Off the Rails Rant Defending Trump
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is being mocked and criticized after issuing an off-the-rails rant defending Donald Trump after the ex-president was indicted late Thursday afternoon.
Trump reportedly will face over 30 charges when he is arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court Tuesday, two weeks after he claimed would be the day he would be arrested. In that infamous social media post Trump also urged his supporters to “protest!”
Congresswoman Greene, an ultra-MAGA acolyte and far-right extremist, on Friday announced she will travel to New York City to show her support for the indicted ex-president.
“I’m going to New York on Tuesday. We MUST protest the unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!” she tweeted.
Her remarks came barely hours after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sent a six-page letter to House Republican Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan warning that Congress must not “interfere” with the prosecution of Donald Trump. It accused him and two other top Republicans of “an improper and dangerous usurpation,” “attempted interference with an ongoing state criminal investigation,” and warned them against “unlawful political interference.”
That letter specifically called out Congresswoman Greene for her rhetoric, noting “some committee members have explicitly stated an intent to interfere with the state proceeding.”
“For example, responding to Trump’s statement that he would be arrested, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene stated that ‘Republicans in Congress MUST subpoena these communists and END this! We have the power to do it and we also have the power to DEFUND their salaries and departments!’ … and that Republicans who ‘do nothing to stop’ the prosecution ‘will be exposed to the people and will be remembered, scorned, and punished by the base.’”
Clearly his warning had little impact on the far-right Georgia Member of Congress.
In response to Greene’s Friday morning tweet, former U.S. Congressman David Jolly, also a former Republican, appeared to suggest she was encouraging an untoward response.
“Lighting the match,” he tweeted.
Lighting the match. https://t.co/LRSeT3p127
— David Jolly (@DavidJollyFL) March 31, 2023
NBC News senior Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake appearing to suggest it was a bad idea, responded by saying, “The situation downtown Tuesday is going to be tense. Narrow streets. Tons of press. Lots of police from different jurisdictions already highly visible.”
Top CBS News reporter Robert Costa responded to Greene’s remarks, noting: “By order, NYPD officers here in lower Manhattan, outside the court, are already in full uniform, bracing for protests next week…”
Condé Nast legal affairs editor Luke Zaleski, also responding to Greene, wrote: “They want to incite violence in NYC.”
“Marge is a confederate soldier not an American public servant,” Zaleski added. “She has taken over Congress and wants to destroy the nation from inside. She admits it. Her public agenda is reinstalling a criminal traitor she’s obstructing justice for and breaking up the United States of America.”
Meanwhile, journalist Helen Kennedy appeared to not take Greene’s remarks – or Greene – seriously.
“Clown hurries to circus,” she tweeted.
Image: L E Mormile/Shutterstock
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