A survey released yesterday by the Public Religion Research Institute has some interesting numbers on the American public's perception of employment discrimination with respect to LGBT people. Steve Benen at MaddowBlog reports
Americans strongly support laws that would protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination in the workplace. More than 7-in-10 (72%) Americans favor laws protecting gay and lesbian people from job discrimination, compared to less than one-quarter (23%) who oppose.
and he notes that that's not surprising given other polling on the topic over long periods of time. What really surprised him was the survey found "Three-quarters (75%) of Americans incorrectly believe it is currently illegal under federal law to fire or refuse to hire someone because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender." I must admit I found that number to be quite high myself, though not out of the realm of reasonable given the
Harris Poll in 2001 I wrote about in 2011 that showed 42% of Americans falsely believing federal law already bans employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Follow me below the fold for a closer look at the drive to get President Obama to sign the ENDA EO.
Of course there is no such federal law and ENDA (in one form or another) has been stuck in Congress for decades. Even when Democrats held a large majority in both the House and Senate in 2009-2010, the legislation didn't get so much as a hearing in committee! John Boehner has declared himself inextricably opposed to the bill while claiming the legislation to be unnecessary.
This is why LGBT activists and many LGBT allies in Congress have been calling upon President Obama to sign an executive order effectively adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the existing Executive Order 11246 governing employment discrimination by federal contractors. Candidate Obama, in 2008, promised to do just that when he answered the Presidential Candidate Screening Questionnaire of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus. He answered "Yes" to making a formal written policy of non-discrimination that includes sexual orientation and gender identity for both all Federal employees and all Federal contractors. While he has mostly fulfilled that promise for Federal employees (he, like George W. Bush, retained Clinton's EO 13087, and has a policy against discrimination on the basis of gender identity, but not issued it in a new Executive Order or added it to the existing order), he has not acted to secure these protections for Federal contractors. According to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (a DOL office established in 1977 and delegated the responsibility of enforcement of President LBJ's EO 11246 by President Carter's EO 12086) some 22% of the American civilian workforce works for companies that fall under the auspices of LBJ's sweeping employment non-discrimination EO. In his recent essay and in an interview with Bill Moyers, Mike Lofgren points out a staggering 70% of the intelligence budget of the U.S. now goes to Federal contractors, which is an industry segment in which government contractors have historically discriminated against LGBT people, most of the time under orders of the federal government to do so, but even still more recently, many of the large companies that do this sort of work don't have non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation or gender identity even though the Federal government no longer denies security clearances because of sexual orientation and gender identity.
While President Obama can't force Congress to pass ENDA giving employment protections to all Americans, he can easily do it for 22% of the workforce simply by adding sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to EO 11246 list of prohibited bases of discrimination along with race, color, religion, national origin and sex by issuing an Executive Order of his own. He did it to raise the minimum wage for Federal contractors because Congress hasn't and won't vote on a minimum wage bill themselves. Indeed the attention Obama has generated with his minimum wage Executive Order has actually placed more pressure on Congress to pass a hike in the Federal minimum wage and emboldened Democrats into starting the process of invoking a discharge petition to force a bill increasing the minimum wage to the House floor over Speaker Boehner's objections. There is every reason to believe a similar Executive Order on employment non-discrimination would also generate much needed attention to the issue and help rebut the misconception three quarters of Americans have on the existence of Federal law prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression.
The excuse we've been hearing from the White House is that they prefer a legislative solution. To quoth Rachel Maddow: "Bull pucky!" First, the President has already promised to set a employment non-discrimination policy for Federal contractors. He hasn't and we've entered Year 6 of the Obama Presidency. The ENDA EO would be a way to keep that promise of establishing such a Federal contractor policy. Second, the President has also promised the American people, both during the campaign in 2012 and since his reelection that in situations where Congress hasn't done its job and he's able to ameliorate the problem, he will act on his own. Employment discrimination against LGBT people has long been an issue, Congress hasn't acted and John Boehner has declared he won't. Thus, this is a perfect example of where President Obama should fulfill his promise to act on his own and add employment protection for 22% of the American workforce while the legislative process is stalled. Third, issuing the Executive Order makes passage of ENDA more likely by educating the public that there is no such Federal law protecting LGBT people from employment discrimination. With 6 House Republicans already signed on as cosponsors to ENDA, such an EO might be the push needed to get us to 218 signatures on a discharge petition. Finally, the Obama Administration's excuse is very intellectually dishonest. No version of ENDA that has ever been introduced to my knowledge and certainly not the current proposed version, does all of what Executive Order 11246 does. Executive Order 11246 isn't some superfluous piece of paper rendered moot by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Indeed it was issued after the CRA (following a long line of Executive Orders on Federal and Federal contractor employment practices dating back to FDR) and provides additional protections to guard against employment discrimination, including the ability of the Department of Labor to proactively insure federal contractors are not violating the policy. Saying you prefer a legislative solution is saying LGBT shouldn't get the same protections in employment at federal contractors that are provided people on the basis of race, sex, national origin, etc.
Does President Obama think the world will implode if he signs it? Is he afraid FOX News and teabaggers will say he's acting like some commie pinko socialist autocratic, despotic king? Is he simply bending to the will of his corporate master overlords?
Seriously...what's the deal, Mr. President?
When FDR issued the first employment non-discrimination executive order, EO 8802 in 1941 banning racial discrimination in the national defense industry and creating the Fair Employment Practices Committee, he did so because A. Philip Randolph was planning a march to protest discrimination. The LGBT community actually has marched on this issue (among others) in 2009, 2000, 1993, 1987 and 1979. FDR's EO was met with violence by angry whites scared blacks would take their jobs, including a riot in Beaumont, Texas that required 1,800 national guard troops to put down and left 2 people dead, more than 50 injured and 200 arrested. Another strike and riot incited by FDR's EO happened at the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilders Company the following year when 20,000 whites walked off the job when they found out the company was going to comply with the FEPC.
FDR's subsequent EO (9346) in May 1943 banning racial discrimination by all Federal contractors was met with mass resistance including a transit strike by the Philadelphia transit system over the possibility that 8 blacks would be trained as streetcar motormen. A review of records by the Fisk University Social Science Institute documented some 242 racial battles in 47 cities stemming from that EO. Both these EO's laid the foundation for Truman's EO desegregating the military and subsequent EO's by Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and finally LBJ that still protect federal contractors from race, color, national origin and sex discrimination to this day. Does President Obama think we'll see the same kind of backlash by prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity when the American public has already overwhelmingly said they come down on the side of equality?
The Administration has lately been dodging the LGBT press and its questions about the Administration's hypocrisy on Executive Orders in light of the EO's of the minimum wage going so far as to block a gay reporter for BuzzFeed from asking Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez a question at an event on veteran hiring, the ONLY reporter not allowed to ask a question. A spokesman for DOL specifically said he wasn't allowed "because the department did not believe [he] would ask about veteran hiring." The reporter had been trying to get an answer on the applicability of and EEOC ruling on DOL enforcement of EO 11246. Former Secretary Hilda Solis, current Secretary Perez and the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs had all been dodging the question and refusing to answer. Amazingly, two days after that was reported, the White House finally provided a response that the "issue is under review" and that they will continue to "contemplate" an Executive Order...which is effectively no different than every other response they have given on this question for the last 5 years.
With all due respect and I wish I were wrong, but the President's inaction on an employment non-discrimination executive order are the inactions of either a coward, or a person who is being willfully and purposefully untruthful. President Obama needs to keep his word on this issue. He needs to act on the leadership being shown not just by LGBT activists but large numbers of Democrats in Congress (at least 110 at last count) who have urged him to sign the Employment Non-Discrimination Executive Order. This isn't the first time Obama has been put under pressure to sign the EO. Even Jon Stewart mocked the President on this very issue when there was a push on this 22 months ago:
Mr President, keep your word. Sign it.