{"id":7856,"date":"2014-07-29T00:03:15","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T23:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=7856"},"modified":"2014-07-29T00:47:19","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T23:47:19","slug":"bishops-denounce-executive-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/bishops-denounce-executive-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Bishops Denounce Executive Order"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"U.S.<\/a>
U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order last week preventing all federal contractors from discriminating against employees based on gender identity and sexual orientation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two chairman from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have denounced<\/strong> <\/a>an executive order from President Barack Obama, saying that the order \u201cis unprecedented and should be opposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Obama\u2019s 21 July executive order<\/strong><\/a> prevents federal government contractors from discriminating against people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This order offers no exemption for religious organizations, despite many religious groups asking Obama to include one in the order.<\/p>\n

Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, and Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, Chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth,\u00a0said the following in an official statement<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

“In the name of forbidding discrimination, this order implements discrimination. With the stroke of a pen, it lends the economic power of the federal government to a deeply flawed understanding of human sexuality, to which faithful Catholics and many other people of faith will not assent. As a result, the order will exclude federal contractors precisely on the basis of their religious beliefs.”<\/p>\n

The bishops\u2019 concern is that this order \u201cignores the inclination\/conduct distinction in the undefined term \u2018sexual orientation.\u2019\u201d Because of this, employers could be turned away from receiving a federal contract if their religious beliefs object to any extra-marital sexual activity.<\/p>\n

This order could prevent<\/strong> <\/a>Christian organizations from applying for federal contracts to fund their charity and relief programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you hold that certain sexual practices are immoral, there is a good chance you probably will be disqualified from contracts,\u201d said Melissa Swearingen, adviser and spokeswoman for the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).<\/p>\n

Equally problematic to this executive order is the idea that \u201cgender identity\u201d is nothing more than a social constraint that can be chosen regardless of the person\u2019s biological gender. The practical results of this could be a biological man using the women\u2019s restroom because he identifies himself as a woman. (For problems with this view of gender, see my article ‘Gender Benders: Is My Sexual Identity an Accident Just Waiting to Happen?<\/strong>‘<\/a> and ‘Unmaking a Difference: Is Gender Neutrality the New Stereotype?<\/strong><\/a>‘)<\/p>\n

Swearingen, who said that the President\u2019s lack of religious exemption was \u201cvery disappointing and hurtful,\u201d also sees this as evidence of the Obama administration\u2019s lack of regard for the concerns of his religious supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely think the administration is on the wrong side of history. It seems they are intentionally discriminating against people of religious faith in the name of nondiscrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n

This Executive Order, which will go into effect early next year, comes after months of lobbying by homosexual groups.<\/p>\n

President Obama\u00a0called the order<\/strong><\/a> \u201cextraordinary progress\u201d for LGBT rights and hailed it as a bringer of fairness to America\u2019s citizens. He told a White House gathering<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cThanks to your passion and advocacy and the irrefutable rightness of your cause, our government \u2013 the government of the people, by the people and for the people \u2013 will become just a little bit fairer.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a White House signing ceremony, Obama told advocates<\/strong><\/a> that he believed in the \u201cirrefutable rightness of [their] cause\u201d and declared that \u201cAmerica\u2019s federal contracts should not subsidize discrimination against the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vice President Joe Biden essentially said<\/strong><\/a> that gay rights override the beliefs of everyone else. In remarks to the Associated Press, Biden declared, \u201cI don\u2019t care what your culture is\u2026Inhumanity is inhumanity. Prejudice is prejudice is prejudice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rev Barry Lynn, Executive Director for American United for Separation of Church and State, said that Obama made the \u201cright call\u201d by not allowing religious exemption to his Executive Order. Lynn said in a statement<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Faith-based groups that tap the public purse should play by the same rules as everyone else and not expect special treatment\u2026No forms of discrimination should be supported with the taxpayer dime, period.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obama might have published this order sooner, but he was waiting to see if Congress would pass the more comprehensive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would have prevented discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for people that work for private businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies.<\/p>\n

ENDA cleared the U. S. Senate in November, but could not get past the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. So Obama took matters into his own hands, saying<\/strong> <\/a>that it was \u201ctime to address this injustice for every American.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ENDA legislation contained a religious exemption, but the USCCB declared<\/strong> <\/a>it too limiting. However, a group of 14 faith leaders asked for a similar provision in the executive order. They said in a letter<\/strong><\/a> to Obama that an executive order without a religious exemption could \u201csignificantly and substantively hamper the work of some religious organizations that are best equipped to serve in common purpose with the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vice President and Senior Counsel of the Thomas More Society, Peter Breen, believes that Obama\u2019s executive order should have been decided by Congress. While directly applying to federal employers and contractors, this order, according to Breen, could become a \u201cslippery slope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis does appear to be laying the foundation for further regulation on the issue of homosexual employees and on transgendered employees,\u201d Breen said.<\/p>\n

Eric Kniffin, an attorney with Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP who has litigated religious-liberty cases, believes that the recent Hobby Lobby case ruling instigated Obama\u2019s not providing a religious exemption.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a huge blow-back to Hobby Lobby, and I think this was one way of President Obama being able to show his supporters, \u2018I\u2019m going to deliver despite the court\u2019s ruling,\u2019\u201d Kniffin said.<\/p>\n

Kniffen also said that the Executive Order \u201ccontinues the Obama administration\u2019s efforts of narrowing religious liberty to internal ecclesial matters: freedom to worship, but not to practice and express ideas in the public square.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, if you employ and you serve people of your own faith, then you can preserve your rights,\u201d Kniffin asserted. \u201cBut when you engage in the public square, then you have to play by the same rules that govern everyone else. Wherever the administration thinks it can narrow religious liberty, it does so. Obviously, this is a First Amendment right, and people are accustomed to this right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s Executive Order adds to President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s 1965 directive that prohibits employers and contractors from discriminating based on \u201crace, color, religion, sex or national origin.\u201d In 2002, George W. Bush made the amendment that allowed religious employers to favor members of their own religion for employment, which Obama\u2019s order retained.<\/p>\n

24,000 companies with 28 million workers, or one-fifth of the U.S. workforce, will be affected by this order, despite many federal contractors already having provisions that prohibit anti-gay discrimination.<\/p>\n

Approximately 14 million workers<\/strong><\/a> will now get protection from employers who currently do not have nondiscrimination policies,\u00a0according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School.<\/p>\n

The fundamental issue in this case is that the Obama administration is equating race, something a person cannot change, to sexual lifestyle choices.<\/p>\n

It would appear that the Obama administration wants to tell America\u2019s Christian citizens who they are allowed to hire and how they must run their business. Americans who want to live our lives according to Biblical beliefs now have one more obstacle put in their way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Two chairman from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have denounced an executive order from President Barack Obama, saying that the order \u201cis unprecedented and should be opposed.\u201d President Obama\u2019s 21 July executive order prevents federal government contractors from discriminating against people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This order offers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1348,1349,1350],"class_list":["post-7856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homosexuality-trans","tag-barack-obama","tag-executive-order","tag-u-s-catholic-bishops"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Robin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/robin\/"},"rttpg_comment":1,"rttpg_category":"Homosexuality & Trans<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Two chairman from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have denounced an executive order from President Barack Obama, saying that the order \u201cis unprecedented and should be opposed.\u201d President Obama\u2019s 21 July executive order prevents federal government contractors from discriminating against people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This order offers…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}