Gay Groups Back Off ENDA, but Why?

by Michael Sean Winters

View Author Profile

Join the Conversation

Send your thoughts to Letters to the Editor. Learn more

According to this morning's Washington Post, several gay rights groups are withdrawing their support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in light of the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby case.

“If a private company can take its own religious beliefs and say you can’t have access to certain health care, it’s a hop, skip and a jump to an interpretation that a private company could have religious beliefs that LGBT people are not equal or somehow go against their beliefs and therefore fire them,” said Rea Carey, the group’s [National Gay & Lesbian Task Force] executive director.

This makes no sense to me. The Court in Hobby Lobby ruled that the government failed to find a less burdensome way of providing the contraceptive care that Hobby Lobby did not want to provide. How do you make a non-discrimination law less burdensome on anyone? The Court could rule, of course, that preventing discrimination is not a compelling government interest, but I doubt they would. I suspect that this is what happens when people get all upset about an issue but do not take the time to think it through. 

Latest News

Advertisement

1x per dayDaily Newsletters
1x per weekWeekly Newsletters
2x WeeklyBiweekly Newsletters