Dear Friend,
Please call your Representatives on the House Education and Labor Committee
now! ( http://edlabor.house.gov/about/members.shtml )
This week, the House Education and Labor Committee will consider the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). If this legislation passes, it
will mainstream homosexuality and provide homosexual activists a legal tool
for punishing employers who do not approve of this lifestyle.
ENDA will force businesses to provide special employment rights and
protected minority status to individuals who define themselves based upon
sexual behaviors. Such efforts are a misguided infringement upon our
constitutional rights to religious freedom. This legislation will be used
by homosexual activists as a tool to punish business owners that have moral
and religious standards.
ENDA would also overturn the historical basis of protected class status by
adding homosexuality to civil rights law. Unlike the currently protected
classes of race and age, "sexual orientation" is behavioral.
There was much opposition on both sides of the aisle to ENDA. Hearings on
this bill have been postponed several times in order to strike compromises
and make the bill "acceptable" enough to garner the votes needed to pass it.
It has now been "reworked" and given a new bill number, H.R. 3685. The
"compromises" include a weak religious exemption and the removal of "gender
identity."
Nonetheless, this bill is still destructive and puts First Amendment rights
at risk. The religious exemption, for example, would apply to a business or
place of employment but not to an individual, as guaranteed by the First
Amendment to the Constitution.
This legislation must be stopped! Please call the House Education and Labor
Committee at 202-225-3121 and urge them to oppose ENDA.
For talking points on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, see below.
Sincerely,
Wendy Wright
President
P.S. As always, we thank you for also considering CWA for your strategic
financial support. With you, we're fighting on key issues like stem cells,
abortion, "gay marriage" and pornography. We need you. If you can help us
today, please go to http://www.cwfa.org/support_cwa.asp and enter your most
generous donation.
Talking Points: The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)
October 16, 2007
ENDA would overturn the historical basis of protected class status by adding
"sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to civil rights law. While every
other federally protected class embodies three standards: an obvious,
immutable characteristic; a history of discrimination evidenced by economic
disenfranchisement; and political powerlessness, "sexual orientation" and
"gender identity" falls under none of these criteria.
An employer with a moral or religious belief opposed to homosexuality or
bisexuality would be forced to lay down their rights and convictions at the
office door. While the U.S. Constitution provides religious freedom for all
Americans, ENDA codifies discrimination against people who oppose homosexual
and "transgender" lifestyles based on religious principles.
ENDA will undermine the institution of marriage and jeopardize the federal
Defense of Marriage Act by pronouncing traditional sexual morality a form of
discrimination in America. This legislation will lead to a glut of
litigation and lead inevitably to employers being required to offer
marriage-like benefits to homosexual employees.
ENDA expands civil rights protections on the vague basis of perception.
Because ENDA covers "real or perceived" "sexual orientation," an employee or
potential employee could sue an employer for his or her perception of the
employee's "sexual orientation." Yet unlike the currently protected classes
of race, age and gender in employment, "sexual orientation" is behavioral
and not scientifically verifiable. Furthermore, "sexual orientation" is
undefined in the ENDA legislation.
ENDA will place the federal government in direct opposition to the beliefs
of all major faiths in America regarding sexuality. The U.S. government
will, in effect, become an adversary to moral sexuality and religious
conviction.
http://www.cwalac.org:80/article_591.shtml
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