After Hobby Lobby, Faith Leaders Want Right To LGBT Discrimination

Piggybacking on the Hobby Lobby ruling, another group of faith leaders is urging President Obama to include broad exemptions for religious employers in an executive order he plans to issue barring anti-LGBT discrimination by federal contractors.

Fourteen religious leaders sent a letter to Obama Tuesday asking him to ensure that a broad religious exemption similar to that contained in the current version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is included in the executive order he is preparing to sign that will prohibit contractors doing more than $10,000 worth of business with the federal government from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The most prominent signee is megachurch pastor Rick Warren, who gave the invocation at Obama's first inauguration but has since criticized some of the president's actions, saying they infringe on religious liberty.

The letter argues that the Hobby Lobby ruling indicates that the federal government should be giving more deference to religious organizations that do not wish to employ LGBT people because it conflicts with their religious values. This week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that closely held corporations can decline to provide coverage for birth control in the health care plans they offer to their female employees if the coverage would violate the owners' religious beliefs.

This comes on the heels of another letter sent to President Obama last week which was signed by more than 100 religious leaders asking him to "respect this vital element of religious freedom" by exempting religiously affiliated groups from adhering to the LGBT antidiscrimination protections contained in the executive order President Obama has announced he is planning to sign.

http://www.advocate.com/politics/2014/07/03/after-hobby-lobby-faith-leaders-want-right-lgbt-discrimination

First they came for the women on this now, they are coming for LGBT. Who's next? This is not good.