The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week by a vote of 235-184. According to the Congressional Research Service summary, the bill “Makes it an unlawful employment practice for covered entities (employers, employment agencies, labor organizations, or joint labor-management committees) to discriminate against an individual on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation…”
This bill is a major win for the gay rights agenda and a major loss for religious and economic freedom. That’s why I am so surprised that U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin’s First Congressional District was one of 35 GOPers to cross the aisle and support the bill.
The bill was opposed by a who’s who of conservative religious organizations, including the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, Exodus International, Alliance Defense Fund, Concerned Women for America and American Family Association. And for good reasons.
The bill carries terrible implications for religious liberty and economic liberty. Congressman Ryan is a champion of the free market and a strong opponent of government regulation and intervention in business. That’s why his vote is so surprising to me. Consider what Cong. Mike Pence of Indiana had to say about ENDA’s effect on businesses:
“Some examples, under ENDA, would mean employees around the country who possess religious beliefs that are opposed to homosexual behavior would be forced, in effect, to lay down their rights and convictions at the door. For example, if an employee keeps a Bible in his or her cubicle, if an employee displays a Bible verse on their desk, that employee could be claimed by a homosexual colleague to be creating a hostile work environment because the homosexual employee objects to passages in the Bible relating to homosexuality.
“The employer is in a no-win situation as well. Either the employer has to ban employees from having a Bible at the workplace for their break time or displaying Bible verses, and thereby face a lawsuit under Title VII for religious discrimination. Or, the employer has to continue to allow it and face a lawsuit under ENDA by the homosexual employee.”
In addition to the economic liberty of all businesses, the Act will have very specific consequences for religious employers. The Act says that its religious exemption mirrors the exemption provided by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: “This subchapter shall not apply to … a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities.” That’s a decent exemption for churches.
But there are a large number of “religious employers” who do not meet the definition and thus qualify for the protections of the exemption. Consider, for instance, an example close to home: There is an evangelical Christian bookstore located on the corner of 20th and Wisconsin, right across the street from the Mashuda Hall dorm. Say some college student walked into another Christian bookstore and dropped off their resume for consideration to be a cashier. The resume said the student is active in service learning, worships at a local United Church of Christ congregation, and is a vice president of the Gay-Straight Alliance at their university. The bookstore management could feel uncomfortable allowing a student leader in GSA to work at the bookstore, due to their belief that the gay lifestyle is incompatible with Christianity, and thus refuse to hire the person. That bookstore would now be guilty of a violation of ENDA.
Or consider a local Christian TV or radio station, when an actively gay person applies to be a talk show host. Or a law firm that serves only Christian clients and causes. Or an architect who builds just churches, or a bank that finances loans only for church construction projects. Any of those entities could be for-profit businesses, and any of them could be guilty of a violation of the law. Many of the conservative Christian lobbying groups that opposed the law, like the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, or American Family Association, likely would not qualify as religious associations and receive the exemption.
Thankfully the White House has promised to veto ENDA, and rightly so. If it even makes its way past the U.S. Senate (hopefully there are 40 people who believe in liberty left in that chamber). Whatever the bill’s fate, I was surprised to see Congressman Ryan’s name in the Yes column on a bill that represents such a great assault on economic and religious liberty.
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Do you think that employers should be allowed to fire someone for their religious beliefs?
Paul Noonan,
If the gay lobby had its way, employers might well be required to fire people who had Christian beliefs — or that least forbid them to discuss those beliefs.
Gay employees, of course, would be perfectly free to discuss their homosexuality in front of Christian employees.
That’s the way it works. Some “protected groups” are more equal than others.
Daniel,
Employers should not fire gay people for being gay. They should not fire Christians for being Christians.
Employers should be able to fire gay people for engaging in activities that disrupt the workplace, such as pestering customers about changing church doctrine to allow gay people to attain the sacrament of marriage.
Employers should be able to fire Christians who are disrupting the work environment by proselytizing.
***preachy***
Gay people are not evil, being gay is not contagious… Hang out with gay people sometime, they’re just like us… Most importantly, gay people do not deserve to be discriminated against… and without laws like this, they will be.
the conservative slippery slope is at it again. in how many states where such non-discrimination laws exist, has any of “the gay lobby” sued someone for merely having a bible on their desk?
the only complaints i have ever heard, but did not reach any court, came from Marquette where it was a professor attacking a gay student for being okay with being gay.
Way to throw in some unsubstantiated homosexual victimization hearsay downer. When you get right down to it, if this hasn’t been used at the state level why waste time enacting it at the national level?
Prof. McAdams, I was merely asking the question to get an idea about the poster’s (and commenters’) intellectual consistency. I think you should be able to fire someone for almost anything (although I don’t think you should, and that if you do you will probably lose out to your competition). If you are against something like ENDA, you should also be in favor of forfeiting any such protections that you enjoy. It is my understanding that under current law, you cannot fire someone because of their religion. If you want to be able to fire someone for being gay, certainly you should also be able to fire someone for being religious.
This exists already for religious protection, so I do not see how this would be unworkable or unreasonable for employers to follow.
So if you oppose this bill how would you end discrimination against an individual on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation? Are gay people just expected to accept discrimination? Discrimination is not very becoming of someone who showcases himself, as you do, of being so ‘Christian’.
Instead of writing a long piece about gay people and religion I think you might have a more enlightened time with a book. In college I read, and learned much from, “Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century”.
John Boswell’s National Book Award-winning study of the history of attitudes toward homosexuality in the early Christian West was a groundbreaking work that challenged preconceptions about the Church’s past relationship to its gay members—among them priests, bishops, and even saints—when it was first published twenty-five years ago. The historical breadth of Boswell’s research (from the Greeks to Aquinas) and the variety of sources consulted make this one of the most extensive treatments of any single aspect of Western social history.
You must be aware that a large majority of people in poll after poll state that they know gay people and favor the end to discrimination. Those who used the Bible decades ago to somehow show that various races should not marry each other have as much sway as you do on this topic. Might your thinking about the Bible and it’s teachings be flawed? Might your limited view on gay people, given your age, play a factor in your views?
And I would be curious what your fellow students who are gay have to say about this bill which you have so much to write about. As a college guy you must have gay friends.
ZC says, “Hang out with gay people sometime, they’re just like us.” What he neglects is the fact that they are, for quite obvious reasons, not just like “us.”
Who is us?
I’m still unsure how this bill results in a loss of religious and economic freedoms. I think it makes a lot of sense to defer to employers to decide under what circumstances termination of employment is appropriate. I believe in free market principles and am confident that employers would make the best decision as determined accordingly.
However, our Constitution has laid out several, specific rights that individuals in the United States are entitled to. The first among these special rights, is the Right to the Free Exercise of Religion. This entitles individuals to practice their religion of choice “(with a few limitations), free from government interference.
The ENDA requires no violation of the Free Exercise Clause (or the Establishment Clause for that matter). It simply requires employers to provide a work environment that is free from discrimination based on sexual preference – there are already countless statutes protecting against other forms of discrimination in the work place.
Most importantly, this statute does not prohibit employers from terminating employment where an employee is disruptive in the workplace, it only requires that an employer not terminate employment or refuse to employ a person based on sexual preference, just like an employer could not terminate employment or refuse to employ a person based on skin color or religious preference.
“If the gay lobby had its way, employers might well be required to fire people who had Christian beliefs — or that least forbid them to discuss those beliefs.”
I was unaware that the “gay lobby” was so hostile towards Christian beliefs. Also, unlike the ENDA, requiring employers to fire people who have Christian BELIEFS would clearly violate the First Amendment right to free exercise. The legislation also would not require employers to fire employees for discussion Christian beliefs, as long as they were not harassing another employee, creating a hostile workplace, or impermissibly discriminating against a group.
Finally, I am surprised at your willingness to not only claim to both be a good Christian while being so insensitive to an innocent group of people, but I am appalled at your use of Christianity as a justification for this hostility.