Breaking: Obama To Sign LGBT Anti-Discrimination Executive Orders Monday

The White House has announced President Barack Obama will sign executive orders Monday prohibiting anti-LGBT discrimination by federal contractors or their employees. But will the religious exemptions be included?

President Obama is slated take action Monday to protect LGBT employees of federal contractors from discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The President has chosen to amend existing executive orders, one signed five decades ago by President Lyndon Johnson, the other signed in 1969 by President Richard Nixon. Obama will amend the orders rather than create brand new guidelines. 

“Obama intends to amend Executive Order 11246, which prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, to add the categories of sexual orientation and gender identity,” Chris Johnson of the Washington Blade reported this afternoon. “Additionally, Obama plans to amend Executive Order 11478, which prohibits discrimination in the federal civilian workplace — and was already amended by President Clinton to include sexual orientation — to include gender identity.”

But the amendments also won’t repeal President George W. Bush’s amendment to EO 11246, which allows religious-affiliated federal contractors to discriminate on the basis of religion, officials said.

Officials said they anticipate the executive action barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity will take effect “early next year” after the Department of Labor writes regulations to implement the amendment. The executive action prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity in the federal workplace will take effect immediately, the officials said.

The executive order related to federal contractors will impact an estimated 24,000 companies who receive federal contractors and employ 28 million people, or about one-fifth of the nation’s workforce, officials said.

In short, the President has moved to give LGBT people protections no greater and no less than other minorities that have earned them since the time of President Johnson.

In December of 2002, President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13279 – Equal Protection of the Laws for Faith-Based and Community Organizations, designed to “ensure equal protection of the laws for faith-based and community organizations, to further the national effort to expand opportunities for, and strengthen the capacity of, faith-based and other community organizations so that they may better meet social needs in America’s communities, and to ensure the economical and efficient administration and completion of Government contracts.”

The Williams Institute calls it “a move that will protect approximately 22 percent (or 34 million) of civilian workers in the U.S., according to research by the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute.”

UPDATE:

Heather Cronk, GetEQUAL’s director, responds to the news.

“We’re so proud today of the decision made by the Obama Administration to resist the calls by a small number of right-wing conservatives to insert religious exemptions into civil rights protections. While we will continue to press for full equality under the law for LGBTQ Americans, we’re thrilled with the announcement today and look forward to President Obama signing his name to an executive order on Monday that we can all be proud of.” 

Image by Tyler Driscoll for Obama for America via Flickr