Next up this week, we have the fact that Barack Obama has decided to do the right thing - which frankly happens sufficiently rarely to deserve notice.The Amazing Mr. O has directed his staff to prepare an Executive Order that will prohibit federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
This is something Obama has been promising for nearly six years now, since his 2008 campaign for president.
It appears that what finally brought this to a head was the failure last year of the Employee Non-Discrimination Act to get through Congress, meaning that it was still legal under federal law for members of the LGBT community to be fired or denied public accommodation.
Obama can't do anything about the public accommodation part by executive order, but he can say that any company that does business with the federal government - and if you count both direct federal employees and those working for contracting companies, you are talking about nearly a quarter of the nation's workforce - Obama can say that any company that does business with the federal government can't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.And now it appears he has finally faced the fact that Congress isn't going to fix this so he has to step up if he's ever going to. It appears now that he intends to do just that. And that is good news.
Sources cited in links:
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/obama-sign-order-banning-federal-discrimination-against-gays-n132276
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/06/obama-will-ban-gay-job-discrimination-by-himself.html
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment