If the very people it is targeted against are all exempt?

We've seen what happens with these religious exemptions via the Hobby Lobby case.

All or nothing on this.

The religious exemption would effectively gut the bill. It is important that religious bigotry NOT be accommodated.

Religion is already being overly accommodated with tax breaks -- they shouldn't get to practice their bigotry as well.

He seems to always be critcizing gay rights groups, more than he criticizes repukes for some bizarre reason...

The reality is, the House is Republican controlled. If the only choice that will happen is ENDA with the clause, or no ENDA at all, I'll take the ENDA with the clause... for now.

In '93, DADT was a compromise step forward for us. It sucked, but it was a step forward. Prior to '93 all of the branches of the military were not only asking about our sexuality, but it was almost a confession seeking style of police grilling complete with threats on what would happen to you if you turned out to be gay and lied during the questioning. DADT didn't give us the right to serve, but it did give us the right not to be interrogated about it. If it wasn't for DADT, the 2013 elimination of DADT to give us full and equal rights in the military probably wouldn't have happened yet. As flawed as it was, it was an actual step forward toward equality.

This is my take on the flawed ENDA:
1. More and more businesses, especially corporations are already coming around and implementing their own full version of ENDA without the law even being on the books.
2. Businesses that choose to invoke the religious clause (the Hobby Lobbies), are going to get called out for doing so. Are going to have legal battles on their hands, and someday will be fully shamed for having been on the wrong side of history (sort of like politicians, and businesses that supported Jim Crow). I also see these lawsuits taking a really challenging stance if the lawyers start attacking the business that choose to invoke the clause when they don't apply their religious beliefs equally (like having no "deep held religious belief against divorced, or re-married employees, yet have a problem with gay employees).
3. Eventually, there WILL be a legal case that goes before the Supreme Court where bigotry and not deeply held religious beliefs will be able to be proven, and that will be the end of that clause, if it isn't struck down sooner legislatively.
4. Right now, businesses can operate completely under the radar, once this bill becomes law, they have to declare themselves if they want to keep on discriminating. This won't change the mind of the Hobby Lobby, and Chick Fillet companies out there, but I have no doubt at all that all the "fence sitting" companies, and their HR policy writers, and their legal teams will find it much easier and preferable to just comply with ENDA rather than try to fight it or risk the negative publicity of invoking the religious clause. With some exceptions, most just think in terms of $$, and to simply comply with the law rather than try to draw unwanted legal attention to themselves is highly preferable.

Is it perfect... hell to the no. Is it a step forward in equal rights? I really think so. Is it the best we can hope for with the current congress? I really think so. And the big question: Will this flawed legislation get us actual equal employment rights faster than no legislation at all? I absolutely believe it will.

Right now there are LGBTs who have been fired or forced to resign from religious institutions because no law exists protecting people from being fired for that reason. ENDA with that religious exemption would do nothing to help those folks and in fact, would actually work against them in a particular way. Right now many of the people who've been fired or forced to resign have filed lawsuits that could effectively be negated should ENDA become law. How? It's one thing to be fired because no law currently exists, in which case you can demand the court define what qualifies as employment discrimination, but quite another to be fired knowing there is a law in place that allows your employer to do so under a religious exemption. Capiche?

Further, as was demonstrated by the Hobby Lobby decision, such religious exemptions could result in an actual expansion of corporate discrimination against LGBTs, not lessen it. In the HL decision the Supreme Court outlined that family businesses with religious convictions could exercise the religious exemption in not following the contraception mandate. Well, you might wonder what exactly qualifies as a "family business" or as the SC put it, a "closely held" corporation?

The three firms in the lawsuit—Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. and Mardel—all have the same business structure: they are owned and controlled by members of a single family.

But closely held firms can take other ownership forms. The Internal Revenue Service defines a closely held company as a corporation that has more than 50% of the value of its outstanding stock directly or indirectly owned by five or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of the tax year. It also cannot be a personal-service corporation.

Closely held companies are owned by a relatively small number of investors, typically including their founding families and management. Roughly 90% of all companies in the U.S. are closely held, according to a 2000 study by the Copenhagen Business School....


So what many LGBT activists realized, thanks to the Hobby Lobby decision, is that religious exemptions could and would be used not only by churches and religious charities but by for-profit corporations because the SC decided that corporations could also have closely held religious beliefs. That effectively creates an out for all but about 10% of for-profit corporations, and those 10% aren't likely to be those with discriminatory policies to begin with.

This is why the Hobby Lobby decision was so critical not just for women's rights but for those of LGBTs. ENDA, with the religious exemption, could have the reverse effect intended and set a legal precedent that could take decades to untangle.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/07/08/gay-rights-group-withdrawing-support-of-enda-after-hobby-lobby-decision/

http://www.thetaskforce.org/press/releases/pr_af_070814

Task Force Action Fund Says No to ENDA

Organization withdraws support from legislation because of broad religious exemptions

WASHINGTON, DC, July 8, 2014 —The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund today announced that it is withdrawing its support for the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). The decision comes as broad religious exemptions, such as the one in ENDA, are creating gaping legal loopholes to discriminate in federal, state and local legislation.

"The morning after the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling, we all woke up in a changed and intensified landscape of broad religious exemptions being used as an excuse to discriminate. We are deeply concerned that ENDA's broad exemption will be used as a similar license to discriminate across the country. We are concerned that these types of legal loopholes could negatively impact other issues affecting LGBT people and their families including marriage, access to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention and access to other reproductive health services. As one of the lead advocates on this bill for 20 years, we do not take this move lightly but we do take it unequivocally – we now oppose this version of ENDA because of its too-broad religious exemption. We cannot be complicit in writing such exemptions into federal law," said Rea Carey, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund.

Carey is urging support for treating LGBT people similarly as other protected classes under federal non-discrimination law, with a reasonable religious accommodation.

"The campaign to create broad religious exemptions for employment protections repeats a pattern we’ve seen before in methodically undermining voting rights, women's access to reproductive health and affirmative action. It is time for fair minded people to block this momentum, rather than help speed it into law. We need new federal non-discrimination legislation that contains a reasonable religious accommodation. LGBT people should have the same protections as those contained in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Legal equality is federal law."

"The truth is that those who seek to deny full equality are succeeding by using religion to create a quasi-moral, completely legal mechanism to discriminate. We can’t let them succeed. We can’t let them ignore the vast majority of people — and millions of people of faith — who think that discrimination is completely immoral and should be completely illegal," said Carey.

I also certainly would LOVE to see the religious clause go away. There are several questions that have to be asked though:

Is it possible, with the current landscape of the House, to pass an ENDA that doesn't include the religious clause? I don't believe it is at all possible to pass an ENDA without exclusion considering the House Republican majority. Heck, I'm not even sure it will pass even with the clause.

If it's not possible to pass an ENDA in both chambers of Congress that the president will sign that gives us our rights, is this flawed form of ENDA better or worse than no ENDA at all? This is really the big question to me. I understand what the article is saying, but right now, excepting in the few states that have written in work protections into their own legislation, any business can discriminate against us freely with complete impunity. The article discusses how it creates an out for all but about 10% of for profit corporations, but the problem is right now they don't even need an out, they can just discriminate at will. So, to me, even flawed ENDA is better than no ENDA at all. At least with this limited form of ENDA they will have to write their discrimination into their HR policies (something I'd bank that the vast majority won't do) in order to continue the practice of discrimination.

On a seperate, but semi-related note, I really think our legal teams need to start going after the "deeply held religious belief" claims directly, instead of going after the policy. I'd be willing to bet that just about every single one of the businesses like Hobby Lobby have no problem at all with employing divorced people, and considering that all 4 verses in the bible that's quoted to condemn us aren't even in the Gospels, and considering there's more than 9 passages in the bible condemning divorce, and directly referencing people who get re-married after divorce as "adulterers" at least 3 of which are IN the gospels alone.. I think a direct challenge to the "deeply held religious belief" of the businesses can be challenged. After all, if they discriminate based on loose passages that's not even a core part of their holy book, but don't discriminate against those who break the core values of their holy book, then they are not holding to their "deeply held religious belief" and are indeed acting on a belief system of bigotry. I really think a few of these types of court challenges, especially where the pious pricks who own the company itself are on their third or 4th marriage.

#1. No, I don't think ENDA could pass without the religious exemption. Now that we've gotten a full view of how broadly that religious exemption can be interpreted, I'm glad many LGBT rights groups withdrew their support.

#2. As I tried to explain previously, there is a big difference between being able to bring a lawsuit because no law currently exists (which would require an interpretation of civil rights law by the courts) and trying to challenge an existing law passed by Congress. Passing ENDA with religious exemptions would not only negate current lawsuits pending on these issues but could tie up any challenges to the federal law for decades.

#3. The courts aren't interested in interpreting scripture. Nor is it their business to do so. People of faith tailor their beliefs in a thousand ways and it's not up to the courts to decide whose interpretation is more valid than someone else's. That's constitutional law.

No sarcasm intended at all. Thanks, I enjoy discourse that makes me really think. You do make some great points. Here's some counter ones:

#1. fully agreed.

#2. Just because a law is passed doesn't mean the constitutionality of the law can't be challenged in court. I can't see how passing bad ENDA can affect current lawsuits pending. Heck PROP 8 was a state constitutional amendment by voters, and because it was unconstitutional got shot down by the court. The entire purpose of Article 3 of the constitution is to give the SCOTUS the right to determine the constitutional status of law. Given the hisory of this SCOTUS on our issues, I'm confident that if bad ENDA passed, and challenged legally, they will strike down the ENDA clause. Yes, I know that they just handed down that awful decision on Hobby Lobby, but the current SCOTUS hasn't been strong on women's issues. They have been strong on ours. Kennedy was a republican appointee, but he's been the "swing" decider in such a huge number of cases you can almost tell which way he's going to go on most issues now. Women's issues, he will likely decide against. GLBT issues he will likely decide in favor. Are there any precedents that you know of where a civil rights law passed, and summarily killed litigation in progress? I am open to changing my mind on this if there's case history.

#3. The courts aren't interested in ntepreting scripture? of course they aren't. However there is already legal precident of faith based discrimination being shot down by the courts where the genuine "faith" of the discriminator was put to the question.

Genesis 28:1: "And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan."

Leviticus 19:19: "Ye shall keep my status, Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind..."

Deuteronomy 7:2-3: "And when the lord thy god shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto that son."

Deuteronomy 22 : "Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds; lest the fruit of thy seed which though hast sown , and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled"

The purpose of these ridiculous quotations? These were some of the faith based arguments made by the state of Virginia in Loving vs. Virginia. Just as today with us, religious freedom, and biblical passages were used by the bigots to make their case, and it was the challenge to their faith that played a part getting the unanimous decision handed down by the SCOTUS, and was part of Just Warren's opine stating that the strength and genuine nature of their faith did not measure up to scrutiny.

So, since the law itself is basing the exemption on deeply held religious belief, then that does open the door to being able to challenge businesses that base their non discrimination policy on that belief, and there is legal precedent of challenging the validity of the faith itself.