WASHINGTON, D.C. (WordNews.org) June 9, 2012 – A Senate committee will take up the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) on June 12, a measure that Christian groups criticize as giving special protections to homosexuals and cross-dressers.
The bill before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee applies to an “individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.” “Gender identity” is defined as “the gender-related identity, appearance, or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, with or without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth.”
Liberty Counsel calls the bill “anti-business, anti-free speech, and anti-religious freedom. Intended to give special protections to homosexuals and cross-dressers, the bill would restrict small businesses and muzzle those with a biblical worldview.”
Liberty Counsel said the bill exposes employers to potential problems, including lawsuits. For example, if a supervisor instructed a male employee he could not use the women’s restroom, the employer would be in violation of ENDA.
According to Liberty Counsel, ENDA states that an employer may not “limit, segregate, or classify the employees or applicants for employment of the employer in anyway that would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment or otherwise adversely affect the status of the individual as an employee, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“The implications of ENDA are outrageous and shocking,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “ENDA would highjack every employer to conscript them to join the sexual anarchist agenda so favored by the Obama administration.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has been backing ENDA for years. On Sept. 23, the ACLU’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender) Project submitted a letter to the House Committee on Education and Labor, the ACLU said, noting ““scores of instances in which both states and municipalities across the country have engaged in unconstitutional discrimination against their employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The ACLU posted on its website a video it says illustrates the “need for transgender-inclusive ENDA. The video features Diane Schroer, a former Airborne Ranger qualified Special Forces officer, then David Schroer, who retired after 25 years of service and started to “transition from male to female.”
According to the ACLU, Schroer was denied a job as a terrorism research analyst for the Library of Congress when Schroer told a future supervisor about plans to undergo “gender transition.”
“The Library of Congress wanted David for the job, not Diane,” Shoer said in the video.
The ACLU is representing Schroer in a sex discrimination lawsuit.
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