Tony Perkins Wages War On ENDA: Gay People ‘Want To Put Their Bedroom In The Workplace’
Tony Perkins is waging war on ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he will co-sponsor. ENDA, ore similar legislation, has been introduced in every Congress except one in some form or another since 1974 — that’s almost four decades. It would finally make firing someone for being LGBT against the law. And Perkins, head of the anti-gay hate group Family Research Council, just cannot stand the thought that gay people couldn’t be fired for being gay. While it’s illegal to fire, say, Tony Perkins for being a Christian or a person over 40, and it’s illegal to fire anyone for the color of their skin or their heritage, sadly, today, in the vast majority of states across our nation, LGBT people can be fired merely for being LGBT.
Calling ENDA “a sweeping proposal that could destroy personal freedom in the American workplace,” Perkins tells his followers “the bill itself discriminates against men and women who oppose cross-dressing or blatant homosexuality on the job.”
While not explaining exactly what “cross-dressing or blatant homosexuality” are, Perkins wrongly states “ENDA creates special employment protections solely on the basis of a person’s sexual preferences.”
Those “special protections” Perkins is claiming?
In reality, being LGBT is a fact of birth — people are born LGBT — while being a Christian, or Catholic, or Muslim, or any faith at all is a choice. The First Amendment provides “special protections” for the choice people make to believe a certain way, so why shouldn’t we have a law to protect people from discrimination based on a fact of birth, as we do for most minority statuses?
Perkins quotes his own Peter Sprigg — the man who single-handedly contributed most to the Family Research Council landing on the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s anti-gay hate list — who claims that “the most fundamental standard of all” in the workplace is “that people be dressed in a way appropriate for their biological sex!”
When did America’s workplaces become fashion houses focused not on the quality of one’s work but the shape of one’s clothing?
As a business executive who has hired literally thousands of people across my quarter-century career working for some of America’s most-recognizable brand names, not once did I ever think the most fundamental standard of all in the workplace is that people be dressed in a way appropriate for their biological sex. Rather, I, and my managers up and down the chain, examined an employee’s productivity and ability to do a job and grow with an organization — not what they were wearing.
Sen. Jeff Merkley’s (D-Ore.) version doesn’t include an exemption for bathrooms, which means that employers at daycares, public schools, and Christian businesses would all have to change their restroom and shower policies to accommodate men who dress like women and vice-versa. Can you imagine walking into your daughter’s classroom and seeing her teacher dressed in drag — or that same man using the ladies restroom with female students? Apparently Senate liberals can.
The fact is that in this matter, Tony Perkins and Marco Rubio are in the minority. The vast majority of Americans don’t think that anyone should be fired for being gay — 73 percent, actually — and what’s more is most Americans already believe that ENDA is the law.
Sadly, it is not.
“Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.),” Perkins writes, “challenged the wisdom of such a policy in a statement last week. ‘By and large, I think all Americans should be protected,’ he said, ‘but I’m not for any special protections based on sexual orientation.’ Kudos to Senator Rubio for recognizing that this bill would be just another government club to beat businesses with. It wasn’t too long ago that homosexual activists said they just wanted ‘to get the government out of their bedroom.’ Now we know why: they want to put their bedroom in the workplace!”
To Tony Perkins, being Christian is a birthright, but being gay is a choice. He thinks he can slander good men and women of conscience by labeling us “intolerant,” “hateful,” “vile,” “spiteful,” and claiming  “it’s a fact” that homosexuality leads to “eternal damnation.”
The real fact is that the days of intolerance by people like Tony Perkins are numbered.
Perkins rarely if ever offers any facts to support his claims. Dozens and dozens of municipalities, including some state governments, have enacted legislation similar to ENDA, protecting LGBT people from the kind of discrimination Tony Perkins thinks some American citizens don’t deserve. And yet, he doesn’t point to any cases showing that these protections have harmed American citizens.
Why?
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U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is under fire for deflecting blame over the escalating crisis at Newark Liberty International Airport—issues his department has yet to resolve. Critics point to his references to “cracks in the system” nationwide and a so-called “Brand New Air Traffic Control System Plan” that, so far, lacks meaningful public detail.
Politico described the Secretary’s lack of specifics by saying that the “Trump administration has closely held the exact contents of Duffy’s plan, but it’s likely to contain some combination of investments in new technologies, facilities upgrades and consolidation along with money for air traffic controller retention and hiring and overhauling the FAA’s infrastructure that allows facilities to communicate together.”
There is already “a multibillion-dollar FAA program called NextGen, which aims to transition the country away from passive radars to a satellite-based system for tracking planes, has been ongoing since 2003,” including during the Biden administration. And, as Politico also reported, the “agency is also in the early stages of a $2.4 billion, 15-year contract with Verizon, issued during the Biden administration, to replace the copper wires that have plagued Newark with modern fiber-optic cables across the country.”
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But according to Secretary Duffy, “Biden and Buttigieg ignored the warning signs at Newark. It was shameful.”
Biden and Buttigieg ignored the warning signs at Newark. It was shameful.
We are fixing the problem. Here are the actions @USDOT is taking now. pic.twitter.com/i73WBOYKrh
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) May 13, 2025
National security and civil liberties journalist Marcy Wheeler commented, “if this guy would just stop blaming the President whose efforts to fix FAA Republicans refused to fund and did something he might actually fix the problem. Stop whining, Crash @SecDuffy. Please do your job and stop whining.”
Duffy has repeatedly attacked his predecessor and the prior administration, attempting to blame the current crisis on them.
“So the blame belongs to the last administration?” asked former Marine F/A-18 pilot and Democratic former political candidate Amy McGrath. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The last administration passed major legislation for funding the fix [to transportation] infrastructure problems DESPITE Republicans (like Duffy) voting against it for years.”
“More lies from another failed reality show contestant,” charged U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY). “Also, pointing fingers instead of addressing our current air traffic issues? Passengers are delayed, airlines are struggling & ATC is understaffed. We need action, not excuses. Less blame game, more solutions.”
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CNN’s David Axelrod mocked Duffy, writing: “Nothing like taking responsibility.”
And Professor of Public Policy Robert Reich, the former Clinton Labor Secretary, added, “when Sean Duffy was a congressman, he and other Republicans voted against upgrading air traffic control systems. Now, he’s trying to blame those systems for Newark airport’s outages – while claiming DOGE’s cuts of critical support staff at the FAA had nothing to do with it. Hello?”
Secretary Duffy on Tuesday warned, “We’re starting to see cracks in the system.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Reporter: You have been saying that this is a decades-old problems. Why didn’t this administration initiate change in the first term?
Duffy: The President was going to fix it four years ago but the last administration did nothing about it pic.twitter.com/L3KXKHQHeJ
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 12, 2025
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Image via Reuters
House Republicans, intent on increasing work requirements for assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and promoting marriage, have devised a new definition for “dependent child.” Currently, an adult has a dependent child if that child is under 18 years of age. Under the new proposed House definition for SNAP, once that child turns seven—usually someone in second grade—they could no longer be considered a dependent, with one exception.
The new House proposal also adds ten years to the time when the adult needs to continue working in order to receive SNAP benefits, from 54 to 64 years of age. However, it removes the work requirement if the adult with the dependent child is married and lives with someone who already complies with the new regulations. Unmarried couples with a child would not qualify for the exemption.
The new proposal would be part of Republicans’ legislation that would provide $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, largely benefiting the wealthy.
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The new bill refers to work requirements for “Able Bodied Adults Without Dependents,” or ABAWD. It reads:
“Specifically, this section would increase the age with which ABAWDs must continue working to qualify for SNAP to 64 (up from 54 currently); it changes the generic, functional definition of ‘dependent child’ for ABAWD purposes from under 18 years of age to under 7; and it carves out an exception to the work requirements for a person responsible for a child 7 years of age or older who is married and resides with an individual who complies with the SNAP work requirements.”
An April 30 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reveals that the GOP’s proposal “could take food away from millions of people in low-income households who are struggling to find steady work or who face substantial barriers to employment, including families with children.”
That report also notes that “the people who would be newly at risk of losing food assistance under the Johnson proposal include…1.4 million older adults aged 55 through 64 without children in their homes,” “More than 3 million adults who live with school-aged children,” “Veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young people who have aged out of foster care,” and, “About 1.6 million people living in areas without enough jobs.”
The move also comes as states lower or remove protections for child workers.
Last year, the Center for American Progress published a report titled, “Project 2025 Would Exploit Child Labor by Allowing Minors To Work in Dangerous Conditions With Fewer Protections.”
READ MORE: ‘Bystander’ Trump Keeps Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ — Critics Ask ‘Who’s in Charge?’
Image via Reuters
Speaker Mike Johnson’s House Republicans want to insert a provision into their massive tax cuts bill that would create a system to hand private and religious schools $5 billion annually and wealthy donors yet another tax break.
Calling it an “unprecedented effort to use public money to pay for private education,” the Associated Press reports that it “would advance President Donald Trump’s agenda of establishing ‘universal school choice’ by providing families nationwide the option to give their children an education different from the one offered in their local public school.”
If enacted, the system would provide a vehicle for donors to donate cash or stocks, then receive full value via a tax credit —”100% of the contribution back in the form of a discount on their tax bills,” according to the AP. “It would allow stock holders to avoid paying taxes that would be levied if they donated or transferred the stock.”
READ MORE: ‘Bystander’ Trump Keeps Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ — Critics Ask ‘Who’s in Charge?’
Samantha Jacoby, Deputy Director of Federal Tax Policy with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities described it as “a new federal tax credit to subsidize private school vouchers — effectively the first nationwide voucher program.” She called it “a costly tax break for the wealthy [with] an egregious capital gains tax loophole.”
Jacoby added, “this is a much more generous tax break than the existing charitable deduction. The max benefit from the deduction is 37 cents per $ donated, but the voucher credit would make taxpayers fully whole; i.e., the federal government pays the full cost of the vouchers.”
Critics are blasting the proposal.
“Voters have never approved vouchers in any state,” noted public education advocate Mike DeGuire, Ph.D. “Now the Republican-led Congress wants to spend billions to gut public education with their voucher scheme for the wealthy.”
“Trump and his cronies want [to] kick 9 million vulnerable people off Medicaid to pay for (1) tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, and (2) $5 BILLION to send to religious schools that are unaccountable to taxpayers,” observed constitutional attorney Andrew L. Seidel, a vice president at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
In 2019, then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos proposed a similar program, Education Freedom Scholarships, which was met with opposition by Democrats.
Then-U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) called it “a shell game to fund private and religious schools and their providers using taxpayers as the middleman.”
READ MORE: ‘Barely Literate’: Education Secretary’s ‘Deranged’ Letter Gets Major Red Ink Corrections
Image via Shutterstock
GOP ‘Voucher Scheme for the Wealthy’ Would Hand $5 Billion to Religious, Private Schools
GOP Plan Redefines Dependent Child as ‘Under 7’—But Adds Loophole for Married Couples
‘Less Blame Game, More Solutions’: Duffy Urged to ‘Do Your Job and Stop Whining’
‘Less Blame Game, More Solutions’: Duffy Urged to ‘Do Your Job and Stop Whining’
GOP Plan Redefines Dependent Child as ‘Under 7’—But Adds Loophole for Married Couples
GOP ‘Voucher Scheme for the Wealthy’ Would Hand $5 Billion to Religious, Private Schools
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