President Obama signs orders protecting LGBT employees

[Lion Heart 15,041]

President Barack Obama plans to sign executive orders Monday prohibiting discrimination against gay and transgender workers in the federal government and its contracting agencies, without a new exemption that was requested by some religious organizations.

 

Obama's action comes on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in the Hobby Lobby case that allowed some religiously oriented businesses to opt out of the federal health care law's requirement that contraception coverage be provided to workers at no extra charge. Senior administration officials said Friday that ruling has no impact on non-discrimination policies in federal hiring and contracting.

 

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly.

 

Since Obama announced last month that he would sign the orders, he's faced pressure from opposing flanks over the religious exemption and given no indication of where he would come down. Many religious leaders and conservative groups wanted him to exempt religious organizations from the order, while liberal clergy and gay advocacy groups adamantly opposed such an exemption.

 

Until last month, Obama long resisted pressure to pursue an executive order for federal contractors in hopes that Congress would take more sweeping action banning anti-LGBT workplace discrimination nationwide. A bill to accomplish that goal -- the Employment Non-Discrimination Act -- passed the Senate last year with some Republican support, but has not been taken up by the GOP-controlled House.

 

The senior officials said Obama's action planned for Monday at the White House would amend two executive orders. The first, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, prohibits federal contractors from discriminating based on race, religion, gender or nationality in hiring. Obama plans to add s-xual orientation and gender identity to the list of protections, and order the Labor Department to carry out the order. The officials said that means the change will probably take effect by early next year.

 

President George W. Bush had amended Johnson's order in 2002 to allow religious groups to hire and fire based upon religious identity. Churches also are able to hire ministers as they see fit. The White House said Obama will not change those exemptions.

 

The second order Obama will amend was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1969 to prevent discrimination against federal workers based on race, religion, gender, nationality, age or disability. President Bill Clinton added s-xual orientation, and Obama will include gender identity in a change to immediately take effect.

 

The officials said the change for federal contracting will impact some 24,000 companies with 28 million workers, or one-fifth of the U.S. workforce. Many large federal contractors already have employment policies barring anti-gay workplace discrimination, as do 21 states. However, the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School estimates that the executive order would extend protections to about 14 million workers whose employers or states currently do not have such nondiscrimination policies.

 

While few religious organizations are among the biggest federal contractors, they do provide some valued services, including overseas relief and development programs and re-entry programs for inmates leaving federal prisons.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/07/18/obama-to-sign-orders-protecting-gay-employees/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/18/obama-gay-rights_n_5600100.html

[Azor Ahai 18,861]

Yaas Obama protector of the geys 

Please stop bombing people tho

[Glow 0]

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS SLAYBAMA

[Logan 20,411]

It's a good start.

[ItsTommyBitch 12,640]

Now if this could apply to ALL positions

 

But its a good start

[ChasingGhosts 726]

Yay  

[Michelle 2,056]

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS SLAYBAMA

That made me actually laugh out loud ....

 

It's a great start.

[Batwings 12,594]

Huzzahs! 

[Scarlet Witch 250]

YAS Obama the QUEEN of gays. Gags could neva

[Nein 508]

Yay

[Morphine Prince 94,064]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama signed an executive order on Monday barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of s-xual orientation or gender identity.

The order did not include new exemptions for religious organizations, a move that was welcomed by gay rights activists.

For a long time the White House has resisted issuing such an executive order, preferring instead to push for legislation in Congress that would ban discrimination against lesbian, gay, bis-xual, and transgender people in workplaces nationwide.

But that legislation stalled in Congress, and advocates pressed Obama to take action to bar such discrimination among federal contractors, who make up about a fifth of the U.S. work force.

"Many of you have worked for a long time to see this day coming. You organized, you spoke up, you signed petitions, you sent letters - I know because I got a lot of them," Obama said to laughter from a crowd of advocates at the White House.

"And now, thanks to your passionate advocacy and the irrefutable rightness of your cause, our government - of the people, by the people, and for the people - will become just a little bit fairer."

In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson signed an order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating “against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, s-x, or national origin.†Obama's executive order added s-xual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected categories.

Obama urged participants to continue working for anti-discrimination legislation that would apply to all employers.

"Congress has spent 40 years - four decades - considering legislation that would help solve the problem.  That's a long time," he said.

"But I’m going to do what I can, with the authority I have, to act. The rest of you, of course, need to keep putting pressure on Congress to pass federal legislation that resolves this problem once and for all."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-signs-order-barring-federal-discrimination-against-gays-174541153.html

[monsterdreams 1,529]

Well done Barack

[pink sushi 4,253]

:applause:

[Michael 533]

bareback obama stanning for the gays

[The Professor 1,060]

Read this on CNN

 

the comments were disgusting