The White House has just announced that President Obama plans to sign an executive order to protect 16 million Americans against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The mandate affects Federal contractors, which employ more than 20 percent of the American workforce.
This major show of support from the president comes as a bit of a surprise, as just a few months ago the White House cited congress’ stalemated Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) as the reason an executive order to the same effect would be “redundant.”
Perhaps the administration had hopes of congress moving forward with their nondiscrimination legislation, but Republican opposition has slowed progress to a crawl (surprise, surprise).
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The Federal government does business with some big fish, and the immediate consequences of Obama’s order are substantial.
For instance, Exxon Mobile shareholders have voted down an anti-discrimination policy for LGBT employees a staggering 17 times, and has held the lowest spot on the HRC’s corporate equality index for years.
Now the oil giant will be forced to offer protections to its LGBT employees and prospective hires.
And all it took was a signature.
This also sends a clear message to companies with hopes of ever doing business with the government: shape up and protect LGBT employees or kiss that contract goodbye.
The president is scheduled to attend a high-profile LGBT fundraising gala for the Democratic National Committee in New York on Tuesday, and you can bet he’ll be talking this one up in hopes of lots of zeroes on those checks.
Cam
Cue the usual defenders of anti-gay bigotry, coming in here screaming that Obama is just doing this for politics and we should hate him because he doesn’t really MEAN it.
You know, as opposed to the GOP politicians THEY support who say that LGBT’s shouldn’t be allowed in the military, should be fired from their jobs, shouldn’t be allowed to marry, adopt, sign contracts with each other, and who financially supported groups advocating for the killing of LGBT’s in Africa.
They should be in here attempting to deflect from the topic in 5……4…..3……2……
northwest
This comes as no surprise to me, the Obama Administration has done so much to advance LGBT rights and the criticism he gets from some in the gay community is totally insane.
Nowuvedoneit
@northwest: Obama gets so much crap from everybody, he can not do anything right, even when he does do right. I am glad I voted for him.
Cam
@Nowuvedoneit:
Agreed, I remember when Obama came out in support of marriage and all of the usual suspects were faking OUTRAGE and screaming that he wasn’t really for it he was just doing it for political reasons. So basically, they attacked him saying he was no different than the GOP before he did it, and then attacked him after he did it. They just hate the guy it doesn’t matter what he does.
RSun
@Cam: I know! Who cares what the “real” motivation is. His actions speak volumes and I also don’t understand why some are so critical (but I am sure it will be re-explained to me *rolling eyes*).
Dakotahgeo
Gratitude and deep thanks to President Obama for doing what the GOTP didn’t have the guts to do! Big oil corporations and Congress just got a real good whuppin’ and should have happened months and years ago. I can hear the right wing conservatives crying in their Depends as we speak!
Nowuvedoneit
Wonder what the Fox News website comments are like? Lol!
tdx3fan
And… the best part… this will last for TWO YEARS before the next president, assuming they want to, will overturn it and declare it null and void. This is possibly a step in the right direction, but its a baby step.
Cam
@tdx3fan:
Much harder to take away rights than to give them. If the next president pulls it, then they actually have to have a full conversation explaining their reasoning. And since the Speaker of the House Boehner will not allow a vote on ENDA to occur even though there are around 205 House members co-sponsoring it now, this is the most that can be done.
1EqualityUSA
Thank you, President Obama. In 2008, when you won, the night was ruined for my souse and I by the Prop H8 passage. Before that time, I had never written a word on the internet. After 2008, people started writing, speaking out, fighting with the haters, NOM-skulls, and the Tedious Right. Here it is, six years later, and look at the progress that has been made. I’m glad I voted for you. The Republicans have done their best to dismiss what you’ve been able to accomplish, even down playing the Osama bin Laden success, the economy improving, the regulations put back into place against the banking industry and credit card companies, school loan reforms and on and on. Many, many of us know what you have had to work with in Washington D.C. and will not be swayed by the Faux Noise propaganda and complainers. I have since pulled my, “Obama” shirts out of the rag bag, because you have set out and done many of the things you said you would do. I’m proud of you, the LGBT community, and the Democrats for finally recognizing that we matter. One set of Americans will not say to another set of Americans that inequality is justified. Thank you for your effort and dedication.
Ridpathos
Obama is the best president since Abe Lincoln.
chaddyboy6
Granted, everyone should be hired or fired based on their ability but what does this mean anyhow? If a company wants to get rid of you they will find a way. And why would anyone want to work for a company that would not accept them? Who would in the right mind want to work under such circumstances? And what about the employers right to hire and fire whom he pleases(whether that decision is rational or moral is not the question-it is their company). Force is never the answer and forcing someone to accept you only breeds resentment.
northwest
@Nowuvedoneit Totally agree. If he could run AGAIN, I’d still vote for him.
hotboyvb81
@Cam: not necessarily- we had a form of ENDA in VA under 2 Democratic Govenors- the minute a Republican won the race- McDonnel 5 years ago, it was one of the first things he pulled. All he said was- ‘we don’t need it’ Sadly, No conversation what so ever took place after that.
Cam
@chaddyboy6: said… “And what about the employers right to hire and fire whom he pleases(whether that decision is rational or moral is not the question-it is their company). Force is never the answer and forcing someone to accept you only breeds resentment.”
_______________________________
Come ON, wasn’t this B.S. all settled with the racial civil rights and women’s rights issues? Why do people bring up the same discredited bullshit from history. Open a damn book.
Look, a business that operates in the PUBLIC sphere, has a public license, has it’s infrastructure paid for by public taxes MUST follow the law in discrimination and hiring.
AS for force NEVER being the answer…..oh really? Because as late as the year 2000 in the state of Alabama around 40% of the people STILL wanted interracial marriage to be illegal. So by the court FORCING That issue, there were decades of happy interracial couples that would not have been able to get married otherwise.
Your argument is basically that we should not force Bigots to abide by anti-discrimination laws because THEY would be resentful. Hmmmmm, I’m curious, what about the resentment of all of the people that they will discriminate against if allowed to. I guess THEIR resentment that their tax dollars are being used to support services and infrastructure that a discriminatory business is using is irrelevant.
Who gives a F**k if bigots are resentful? This is the same B.S. that groups like HRC were using when they tried to stop people from pushing for Marriage and and end to DADT. Well look what happened, they were wrong, it was the pushing for change that ended up changing people
s opinions.
Saralikesyarr
Wow that’s really nice. Good for him. Thank you Mr. Obama.
Saralikesyarr
@Nowuvedoneit:
“Obama gets so much crap from everybody, he can not do anything right, even when he does do right. I am glad I voted for him.”
Yeah I agree, people give him so much crap. And he has made mistakes but he’s done a lot of good. In his position he’s like darned if you do, darned if you don’t. People really aren’t fair to him. He’s done a lot.
AxelDC
It is good to finally have a president with the courage to push gay rights during election years, not after them. He signed onto the gay marriage fight in 2012, and now he is pushing employment rights in 2014.
James Hart
Great news!!!
Reid Condit
There is a remedy for not being able to re-elect Obama in 2016: we can work to elect Michelle. Why not? Besides being pretty, she’s probably as smart as he is and I bet she can cook, too.
gyntlgynt
I am VERY HAPPY for this !!!!
Now I hope he can help the LGBT community that are not employed with company’s that doesn’t have a government contract.
johnnys.nuts
I voted for him twice. He’s done both good and bad, just as every other president has. In my opinion it doesn’t matter whether he is doing things for the gay community for political purposes or not. The important thing is that he is doing them. His agenda is unimportant.
mezzacanadese
Anything that helps LGBT people is great! Whatever Obama’s motive or lack thereof.
tjr101
I’m waiting with bated breath for BlowJobMcFrisky to come and rain on this parade. He and the gay republicans will try to convince use that Romney would’ve been better.
Blackceo
I love that man. Thanks Mr. President.
Jacob23
Good on the President! But there is a reason we are getting an executive order – which can be withdrawn by the next President – and not a full statute. And that is because our organizations which have been fighting to pass a gay rights bill for 40 years, were forced to transform themselves into “LGBT” organizations that cared more about heterosexual transsexuals and crossdressers.
So complete was their betrayal of LGB people that they not only advocated that crossdressing issues be stuffed into ENDA, but they ACTIVELY OPPOSED passage of ENDA – their own bill – if it did not include workplace crossdressing and transsexual bathroom selection privileges. It is like MLK coming out against civil rights because the 1964 Civil Rights Act didn’t address the problem of air pollution. The invention of “LGBT” is surely one of the most epic scams in the history of American social movements.
Saralikesyarr
@Jacob23:
You’re such a hater Jacob. Your vehemence and hatred for transgender people really is disgusting. It’s no use telling you that transgender people come in gay and bisexual varieties. No, for you it’s a giant transgender conspiracy, even though transgender people are a minority, and lack anywhere near the funding of gay people. No, you think there’s a giant conspiracy towards you. Well go ahead and think that way. The rest of us in the LGBT community know better.
Feel free to follow up my response with another rant and personal insults while you are at it. Perhaps you can add some ad hominems while you are at it.
Blackceo
@Jacob23:
Well hopefully Hillary or another Democrat will be the next President and I think it would look really bad even if the next President is a Republican to strip away this sort of executive order. It will definitely be a question that is asked in the debates and by journalists who asked the potential candidates questions, so we will know their position beforehand. Sure they could lie and get in office and withdraw it, but that would be damn near political suicide as gay rights are marching forward with such fervor.
Kieran
Somehow I can’t picture a “President McCain” or a “President Romney” doing this. Which is why it is important for every gay brother and sister to vote for our friends in every election. Elections matter and in the highly polarized USA we live in, millions of energized gay voters can swing elections and change history.
Dakotahgeo
@Kieran: You have hit on the exact plan we MUST follow in 2014 and 2016 if we are going to protect and save our country. EVERY VOTE COUNTS from the left wing, Democrats, and Progressives. No more TEA parties!
1EqualityUSA
The Republican gerrymandering, voter suppression, and cheating will be rampant this election cycle. Dakotahgeo is right, every vote counts.
Black Pegasus
Am I the only one who feels like its a great time to be alive in our nation’s history?
1. We’ve seen the first Black President elected to the most powerful office in the world.
2. Gay men and women can serve openly in the military.
3. DOMA is ruled unconstitutional.
4. Marriage equality is taking hold in many states.
5. First openly gay professional football player gets drafted.
6. President Obama signs an executive order which protects gay men and women on the federal level.
America is slowly but surely living up to it’s creed. I feel so good right now 🙂
1EqualityUSA
Black Pegasus, …and we’ll wash our swords in the Sea. Future generations will not even know what it was like to go through this. Writers, write. Film makers, make documentaries. Artists, paint. We must never let the world forget how the Republicans oppressed, how the Supreme Court Justices that Republicans appointed, turned on us, bending the law to meet their religiosity, how the sleazy, small-fry politicians such as, Nancy “wiggling” Elliott of New Hampshire belittled gay men in the most demeaning way she could possibly conjure, as her complacent cohorts stared dead-ahead, expressionless, how Mittins Romney flip-flopped over our inalienable rights like a desperate fish on a tuna boat, how Catholics, Christians, Country hick Pastors, and Cults (Mormons) made political traction on our community, how Princeton’s Robert P. George and Maggie Gallagher formed at hate group that was somehow justified by many, how Prop H8 had our rights put up for a vote, and on and on. We endured all of this. I love your post, above. I still have pain, but it’s nice to see your list and know that we did endure this. Future LGBT generations will have their families protected by the same laws that have protected the “popular Americans.” America has no choice but to live up to its creed, indeed. Thank you for your words.
Jacob23
@Saralikesyarr: Sorry, sara, but I don’t hate T people. I do hate the fact that Ts, in concert with a small group of “queer” academics, have tried to hijack gay identity and the LGB civil rights movement. It is a fact that ENDA was crafted to be as easily passable as possible. We junked everything but employment protections and the focus was on discrimination based on sexual orientation. That protected everyone – gay, straight and bi – and since transgender people are all straight, gay or bi they too would have benefited.
And we have lost all of that because of trans activist demands. We had a window of opportunity in 2009-2010 with the Dems controlling both houses of Congress and the Senate with 60 votes, and with some Repub Senators supporting it too. But “LGBT” required that we stuff the bill with gender identity issues and the entire thing cratered. That was 5 years ago and it might easily be another 20 before we have another chance. Supporters of “LGBT” all need to own responsibility.
Saralikesyarr
@Jacob23:
I remember that a little differently. I seem to remember Donna Rose, and Jamison Green resigning in protest from the HRC, and there be massive protests and resistance from the LGBT community from what was seen as a completely betrayal of a vulnerable minority of our community, for the sake of advancing the rights of another section only.
It was not a “small group of “queer” academics” who opposed segregating out transgender people, it was the majority of the LGBT community, which was why the turnabout. The HRC lost a lot of money in donations because so many people opposed their behavior in that. The second largest LGBT lobby group in the US, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the NGLTF opposed it, as well as the vast majority of all LGBT organizations.
It wasn’t a minority of LGBT people who shut that down, it was the vast majority of us who were not okay with leaving a vulnerable population of queer people out in the cold just to advance everyone elses own rights. Transgender people are such a small population and so vulnerable, that they would never be able to create the lobbying muscle they would need on their own, and it would be decades before they would have such rights without the support of the rest of us.
We were not okay with leaving a vulnerable population that is subject to the highest rates of discrimination, murder, rape and violent crime out in the cold without legal protections for decades to come, just be cause a minority of LGBT people (who are mostly gay men), had an issue with it.
It’s the other way around Jacob, it’s you who is the minority, and that’s why the bill got shut down, was because the majority of LGBT people opposed it in that form. Thousands of LGBT people wrote letters and made phone calls urging people not to leave transgender protections out. It was not a minority.
1EqualityUSA
Usually when a word such as, “sorry” is followed by a smaller word, “but” the sorry is not sorry at all.
james_in_cambridge
@Jacob23: C’mon! You know the damned Republican House wouldn’t have passed anything LGB either! But Republicans can’t fight demographics forever. No Republican (except maybe Chris Christie) has a path to the Presidency…there are no blue States that I can see going to a Republican ever again, while Hillary can probably knock off a few States Obama lost, ’cause she’s white and race is still an issue in those States, like Kentucky & North Carolina. And there are also at least a half dozen Republican States trending Blue, including Texas. A Hillary sweep will result in a Democratic House and overwhelmingly Democratic Senate in two years (most Senate seats up for election will be in Blue States then; Democrats can’t be incompetent enough to lose, though they’ll try!) We can pass it all then.
1EqualityUSA
LGBT. If one of us is left behind, it’s inexcusable. We all have gifts to offer and we all are victims of discrimination. Since most of America makes no distinction between us, we need to stay as solid as a block. The Tedious Right is trying to split us. If inclusiveness postpones our progress for an election cycle or two, so be it. At least we will know who our allies are. When the AIDS crisis unfolded and hit its crescendo, LBT were instrumental in helping their brothers. This has made our community stronger and it drew factions together. We have enough rejection to contend with, without turning our backs on each other. There’s room on the island for everyone. United we stand, divided we fall.