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One of my Facebook friends called him \u201cthe great divider.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even though I am both aware and horrified by the endless hatred directed at whoever sits behind the desk in the Oval Office, I think that\u2019s a fair thing to say about President Obama. His penchant for one man sledgehammer legislating against the First Amendment is a particular case in point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So far as I am concerned, the HHS Mandate is a permanent blot on his presidency.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve spent the morning, sifting through the product<\/a>\u00a0of our President\u2019s mighty pen from yesterday. I\u2019ve been sitting in front of my computer with the screens littered with copies of the executive orders he amended, wondering, where, exactly, is this one man show pointing us?\u00a0<\/p>\n My best guess, based on what I see, is that it\u2019s pointing us toward court. The reason is the lack of a specific religious exemption in President Obama\u2019s verbiage.\u00a0<\/p>\n What he has done with this executive order<\/a> is to amend two previous executive orders from the 1960s. These 1960s executive orders provided direction to the Department of Labor on the question of discrimination in employment. The orders dealt with employment discrimination because of \u201crace, color, religion, sex, national origin, handicap or age.\u201d President Obama\u2019s executive order adds \u201csexual orientation, gender identity\u201d to that list.<\/p>\n Executive Order 11478<\/a> deals with direct federal employment by direct government agencies. I think it will stand and basically have no big problem with the order as I understand it now. I may change my opinion when I see the rules promulgated by the Department of Labor.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, Executive Order 11246<\/a> deals with federal contractors. This could be construed to include grantees and, if you want to stretch it, any entity that receives federal money for anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n President Obama did not address a third executive order by President Bush, Executive Order 13279.<\/a> President Bush\u2019s order was designed to protect the religious freedom of entities that receive grants, contract with the government or otherwise receive government monies. It contains a laundry list of sorts of the types of services which it covers. It also specifically addresses the entities covered by Executive Order 11246,<\/a> which applies to federal contractors. Executive Order 11246 is one of the orders President Obama amended yesterday.\u00a0<\/p>\n The assumption being made in various press outlets that I have read is that President Bush\u2019s executive order provides the religious exemptions needed to keep President Obama\u2019s ENDA order from turning into another HHS Mandate.<\/p>\n Is that true?<\/p>\n Only somewhat, and, depending on the regs the Department of Labor comes up with, maybe not at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n The reason I say that is two-fold. First, and scariest, President Obama\u2019s order calls on the Department of Labor to promulgate rules. This is normal and necessary. What makes it scary is the big time precedent of this administration using rules and regs to attack religious freedom.<\/p>\n The disastrous HHS Mandate<\/a> is a rule, not a law. Of course, if the president sincerely wants to avoid another HHS Mandate, he can use his powers to encourage sensible regulations that ensure religious liberty. He also has the power to deep-six any reg or rule by not signing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m taking a wait and see position on how those rules are going to look and what this president signs. He lied about religious freedom to get the votes to pass the Affordable Health Care Act and he\u2019s consistently lied about the impact of the HHS Mandate. So, I don\u2019t trust him.\u00a0<\/p>\n The second reason I think this may end up in court is that court cases and various agency rulings have already attacked Catholic institutions<\/a> and successfully stripped them of federal grants because of the Church\u2019s adherence to 2,000 year-old consistent teachings. There is also a lawsuit in the courts attacking the Catholic bishops for teaching Catholic teaching<\/a> concerning abortion in regards to Catholic hospitals.\u00a0<\/p>\n Both Robert George, Vice President at United States Commission on\u00a0International Religious Freedom, and the Catholic Bishops have issued statements opposing President Obama\u2019s ENDA order precisely because it lacks a religious exemption. I think they are on solid ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n Based on that litigious impulse to attack Catholic teaching through the courts, I think the chances of ENDA ending up in court are quite good. What we will probably have at that point is adjudication based on dueling executive orders. President Obama could have stopped this before it got out of the gate by simply adding a religious exemption to his orders yesterday.\u00a0<\/p>\n I going to let you read both Robert George\u2019s complete statement and the complete statement from the USCCB without edits.\u00a0<\/p>\n From the USCCB:<\/p>\n WASHINGTON\u2013The bishop-Chairmen of two USCCB Committees responded with great concern to President Obama\u2019s July 21 executive order to prohibit federal government contractors from what the Administration deems \u201csexual orientation\u201d and \u201cgender identity\u201d discrimination and to forbid \u201cgender identity\u201d discrimination in the employment of federal employees. The problems the bishops identify in the order relate both to the flaws in its core prohibitions, and to its lack of religious freedom protection.<\/p>\n Two USCCB Chairmen \u2013 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 \u2013 together issued the following statement. \u00a0<\/p>\n Today\u2019s executive order is unprecedented and extreme and should be opposed. \u00a0<\/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. \u00a0<\/p>\n More specifically, the Church strongly opposes both unjust discrimination against those who experience a homosexual inclination and sexual conduct outside of marriage, which is the union of one man and one woman. But the executive order, as it regards federal government contractors, ignores the inclination\/conduct distinction in the undefined term \u201csexual orientation.\u201d As a result, even contractors that disregard sexual inclination in employment face the possibility of exclusion from federal contracting if their employment policies or practices reflect religious or moral objections to extramarital sexual conduct.<\/p>\n The executive order prohibits \u201cgender identity\u201d discrimination, a prohibition that is previously unknown at the federal level, and that is predicated on the false idea that \u201cgender\u201d is nothing more than a social construct or psychological reality that can be chosen at variance from one\u2019s biological sex. This is a problem not only of principle but of practice, as it will jeopardize the privacy and associational rights of both federal contractor employees and federal employees. For example, a biological male employee may be allowed to use the women\u2019s restroom or locker room provided by the employer because the male employee identifies as a female. \u00a0<\/p>\n In an attempt to avoid these needless conflicts, states that have passed \u201csexual orientation\u201d or \u201cgender identity\u201d prohibitions have overwhelmingly included protections for religious employers. When the U.S. Senate, which is controlled by the President\u2019s own party, passed the similar Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) last year, it included religious liberty protections as well. Indeed, all prior versions of ENDA had at least some religious liberty protections. But the executive order is an anomaly in this regard, containing no religious liberty protections. In this way, the order, which is fundamentally flawed in itself, also needlessly prefers conflict and exclusion over coexistence and cooperation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Regarding federal contractors, the Executive Order will take effect after rules to be promulgated by the Department of Labor implementing the Executive Order become final. Regarding federal employment, the Executive Order is effective immediately. MEDIA CONTACT ONLY\n
USCCB Chairmen Respond To \u2018Unprecedented And Extreme\u2019 Executive Order<\/h1>\n
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\nJuly 21, 2014<\/span><\/div>\n
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Keywords: Employment Non-Discrimination Act, ENDA, Archbishop William E. Lori, Bishop Richard Malone, gender identity, sexual identity
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Sister Mary Ann Walsh
O: 202-541-321
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