Christian Ministries Protest Over Executive Order Banning Religious Exemption From Hiring LBGT: "Extreme and Unprecedented"

Jeff Walton : Jul 22, 2014
Institute on Religion and Democracy

"With the stroke of a pen [the order] 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." -Archbishop William E. Lori and Bishop Richard J. Malone

(Washington, DC)—Religious groups will not receive an exemption from an executive order signed this morning by President Barack Obama banning "discrimination" based on sexual orientation or "gender identity" by federal contractors.

The order adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of specially protected categories that apply to federal contractors, and it adds gender identity to sexual orientation as a protected category for federal employees. The order could institutionalize federal discrimination against all religious groups and persons affirming natural marriage, traditional sexual ethics and the biological reality of gender.

A June letter sent following the U.S. Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby-Conestoga Wood decision requested that the President include explicit religious freedom protections in any executive order regarding LGBTQ employees of federal contractors.

The letter, which was organized by Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance President Stanley Carlson-Thies, was signed by religious leaders including National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America Executive Director for Public Policy Nathan Diament, National Christian Hispanic Leadership Conference President Samuel Rodriguez, and Obama Spiritual Advisor Pastor Joel C. Hunter.

Officials from World Relief, World Vision, World Concern, Food for the Hungry and Samaritan's Purse are signatories, along with numerous Christian Colleges and Universities. Several denominational leaders also signed, including officials from the Assemblies of God, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Wesleyan Church, Presbyterian Church in America, Church of the Nazarene, Christian & Missionary Alliance and others.

IRD President Mark Tooley said the new executive order compelling all federal contractors to affirm the latest LGBT orthodoxy escalates the ongoing culture war against traditional mores and religion.

On a side note, America's Catholic bishops have strongly criticized the order. Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore and Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo issued a joint statement saying, "In the name of forbidding discrimination, this order implements discrimination."

An article in LifeSite News added that the order does maintain a 2002 exemption instituted by President George W. Bush that allows religiously-affiliated contractors to consider a person's faith tradition in their hiring decisions.