NOTE: Rep. Blunt penned a column on the majority’s ENDA legislation this week for Human Events, available HERE. His speech on the floor of the House can be viewed on YouTube by clicking HERE. Call 202-225-6536 or go to his website HERE to thank Congressman Blunt for standing up for religious freedom and educating the nation on how ENDA will undermine it. If we had more Congressmen like Blunt, our freedoms would not be in jeopardy.

Majority’s ENDA Bill Takes Dead Aim at Religious Freedom

Legislation creates conflict between one’s right to religious freedom, and another’s right to sue you for exercising it

WASHINGTON – House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) issued the following statement today after Democrats failed to secure a veto-proof majority on the so-called Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that would erode one’s right to religious freedom by strengthening another’s right to sue you for practicing it:

“The structure of the bill before us today is eerily similar to legislation we’ve seen from this majority all year: a favorable, purposefully misleading title applied to a bill that’s poorly assembled and oblivious to its own consequences. 

“In this case, the so-called ‘Employment Non-Discrimination Act’ creates a legal quagmire for employees who practice, or even acknowledge, their religious beliefs – depending on where they happen to work, and subject to judicial interpretation. In the process, it erodes a basic, fundamental right bestowed upon us by our Creator – and a right guaranteed to every American under the U.S. Constitution.

“As a former president of a Baptist college in Missouri, supporters of this bill have been quick to assure me that its most onerous provisions would not apply to that school. But no such exemption is available for Christian bookstore owners, as an example, or any other small business in which people of faith and deep religious conviction are relied upon as an integral part of the workforce.

“Thankfully, Republicans secured the votes necessary this afternoon to uphold a presidential veto. It’s my hope now that this Congress can move forward on the real priorities affecting American families. Though a clear boon to trial lawyers, this bill does not meet that standard.”

NOTE: Rep. Blunt penned a column on the majority’s ENDA legislation this week for Human Events, available HERE. His speech on the floor of the House can be viewed on YouTube by clicking HERE.

Click HERE for a list of Republicans and Democrats who broke with their party’s majority on the ENDA bill. 

From Liberty Counsel, November 7, 2007

Contact President Bush and Ask Him to Veto ENDA – H.R. 3685 Passed by a vote of 235 to 184

We told you earlier this week about the dangers of ENDA (Employment Nondiscrimination Act), which elevates “sexual orientation” to a protected civil right. Unfortunately, the bill passed this evening.

Religious freedom for Christian employees and business owners is in jeopardy! Read more about the dangers of ENDA.

President Bush has said that he will veto the bill. A veto override would require 270 votes (2/3 of the House).

ENDA VOTE TALLY: Total was 235-184; bill passed and moves to U.S. Senate

By Party:
Democrats 200-25
Republicans 35-159

Republicans Voting in Favor

Biggert (R-13, IL)
Bono (R-45, CA)
Campbell (R-48, CA)
Castle (R-DE)
Davis, Tom (R-11, VA)
Dent (R-15, PA)
Diaz-Balart, L (R-21, CA)
Diaz-Balart, M (R-25, CA)
Dreier (R-26, CA)
English (R-3, PA)
Flake (R-6, AZ)
Fossella (R-13, NY)
Frelinghuysen (R-11, NJ)
Gerlach (R-6, PA)
Gilchrest (R-1, MD)
Hobson (R-7, OH)
Kirk (R-10, IL)
Knollenberg ((R-9, MI)
Kuhl (NY) (R-29, NY)
LoBiondo (R-2, NJ)
McCotter (R-11, MI)
McCrery (R-4, LA)
McHugh (R-23, NY)
Miller (R-10, MI)
Platts (R-19, PA)
Porter (R-3, NV)
Pryce (R-15, OH)
Ramstad (R-3, MN)
Reichert (R-8, WA)
Ros-Lehtinen (R-18, FL)
Ryan (R-1, WI)
Saxton (R-3, NJ)
Shays (R-4, CT)
Tiberi (R-12, OH)
Walden (R-2, OR)

Democrats Voting Against ENDA

Barrow (D-12, GA)
Berry (D-1, AR)
Clarke* (D-11, NY)
Cramer (D-5, AL)
Davis (D-7, AL)
Davis, Lincoln (D-4, TN)
Edwards (D-D-17, TX)
Gordon (D-6, TN)
Holt* (D-12, NJ)
Lampson (D-22, TX)
Lipinski (D-3, IL)
Marshall (D-8, GA)
McIntyre (D-7, NC)
Melancon ((D-3, LA)
Michaud* (D-2, ME)
Nadler* (D-8, NY)
Rahall (D-3, WV)
Ross ((D-4, AR)
Shuler (D-11, NC)
Skelton (D-4, MO)
Tanner (D-8, TN)
Taylor ((D-4, MS)
Towns* ((D-10, NY)
Velazquez* (D-12, NY)
Weiner* (D-9, NY)

* indicates that “no” vote was likely because “gender identity” (pro-transgender) language was not included

PFOX News Advisory:  November 8, 2007

Contact:  Regina Griggs, Director, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX)

703-360-2225  PFOX@pfox.org   www.pfox.org
 
New “Gender Identity” Law Would Have The Effect of Legalizing Indecent Exposure to Minors

‘Weekend Transgenders’ to Use Women’s Shower Rooms and Bathrooms?
 
Montgomery County, MD — A bill before the Montgomery County, Maryland Council puts girls and women at risk by opening women’s restrooms and locker rooms to men who dress as women, warns Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX).  The bill virtually eliminates gender distinctions by allowing Montgomery County residents to choose if they are male or female even when the choice conflicts with their biological sex. 

The bill, slated for a vote on Tuesday, Nov. 13, would add ‘gender identity’ as a protected class for ‘transgenders.’  It would guarantee the right to use public facilities consistent with the person’s gender identity “publicly and exclusively expressed or asserted.”  No sex change is necessary.
 
As an organization that aids former transgenders, PFOX can attest that many transgenders prefer to dress and act publicly and exclusively as a woman or man on weekends and then as their birth gender during the work week.  These are known as “weekend transgenders.”  Pedophiles could also put on a dress and assert they are exclusively female in order to get near naked children in swimming pool locker rooms. 

When asked if the proposed law would apply to weekend transgenders, Council member Duchy Trachtenberg refused to answer, instead insisting that “transgender people face serious discrimination … in public accommodations.” 

“There’s a good reason why transgenders face ‘serious discrimination’ when using shower rooms and toilets that don’t apply to their gender,” said Regina Griggs, executive director of PFOX.  “It’s because they don’t belong there.  What parents want their daughter to use the public pool’s locker room with a naked man who cross-dresses full-time or part-time?  This bill in effect legalizes indecent exposure to minors in these kinds of situations.” 

Americans For Truth received the following two e-mails via our website after our recent posts mentioning Matt Barber’s firing by Allstate in 2005. Note the crude, concocted e-mail address in the first hate message, which we redacted below (AFTAH regularly gets emails from cowardly, “insult-and-run” activists who block the reply to their message):

From: Illinois Resident [mailto:wouldntyouliketoknow@[f–k]you.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 9:40 PM
To: americansfortruth@comcast.net
Subject: [AFT Web Site] Bigots

 

I read through your hate speech filled website and saw that some bigot was fired for gay bashing. GOOD! Let this send a message!

________________________

—–Original Message—–
From: Non scrivetemi [mailto:nonscrivetemi@pboxmix.winstonsmith.info]
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 10:41 PM
To: americansfortruth@comcast.net; peterlabarbera@comcast.net
Subject: Matt Barber DESERVED to be FIRED by ALLSTATE INSURANCE

 

Allstate is a reputable company, Matt Barber is an IDIOT.
Peter please quit distorting the Truth!

 Today’s corporate employees are more likely to be fired or punished for OPPOSING homosexuality than for “being gay.” In 2005, Matt Barber was fired by Allstate in 2005 after writing a column opposing homosexuality. A staffer at Human Rights Campaign, the powerful homosexual group now crusading for the federal ‘ENDA Our Freedom’ bill, “reported” Barber’s column to an Allstate staffer, leading to Barber’s firing. Call Congress today at 202-224-3121, or go to www.congress.org, to urge your Representative to oppose ENDA, HR 3685.

NOTE TO READERS: Proposed amendments to H.R. 3685, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) approved by the Rules Committee for a vote on the House floor — probably tomorrow — do little to address the bill’s core problem: it tramples on the rights of Christian and moral-minded businessmen by creating new federal employment rights based on aberrant sex (or at least the inclination toward homosexuality/bisexuality). AFTAH released the following media advisory today:

Americans For Truth
http://www.americansfortruth.org/

November 6, 2007

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631

Americans For Truth Says ENDA, H.R. 3685, Would Lead to Religious Persecution

Christian Newswire. NAPERVILLE, Illinois — Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera today urged Christian, Muslim and other moral-minded Americans to “wake up to the tremendous threat that the ‘ENDA Our Freedom’ Bill, H.R. 3685 (Employment Nondiscrimination Act), poses to their religious and First Amendment freedoms.” H.R. 3685 could be debated on the House floor today. [It now appears the vote will be Wednesday, Nov. 7.]

See Americans For Truth’s paper, “14 Good Reasons to Oppose HR 3685, the ‘ENDA Our Freedom’ Bill.”  Call Congress at 202-224-3121 or go to www.congress.org.

“In an era when homosexuals are being hired – not fired – for “being gay” — and when Christians are already being punished or fired by corporations like Allstate for opposing homosexuality, ENDA would lead to further harassment of faith-motivated employees by creating federal ‘rights’ based on homosexuality and bisexuality,” LaBarbera said.

He offered this example as to how ENDA would codify discrimination: “Take an orthodox Jewish entrepreneur who owns a large day care center. He can now factor in his morality about homosexuality as a sin. (He rejects the idea of innate, innocuous “sexual orientation.”) Under ENDA, if his company were to grow to 15 or more employees, he would lose his right to consider his own religious and moral beliefs in hiring/firing decisions. A bisexual with good credentials who does not get hired might sue him for “discrimination.” (If he’s an outspoken pro-marriage advocate, he might be targeted for a “gay” lawsuit.) The government’s politically correct view of homosexuality could force this man, and hundreds of thousands like him, to violate their conscience. It’s Big Government with an amoral twist and, incidentally, a homosexual activist lawyer’s dream.”

To understand the inherent conflict between “gay rights” and religious freedom, LaBarbera pointed to lesbian Georgetown professor Chai Feldblum’s 2005 Beckett Fund presentation, “Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion.” Unlike most homosexual activists, Feldblum at least recognizes that religious citizens have a valid moral claim in opposing homosexuality, yet she asserts that homosexuals also have a “moral” claim for their “civil rights” (including same-sex “marriage”). She calls the conflict between those two claims a “zero-sum” game.

“Feldblum says her ‘morality’ outweighs that of traditionalists. I would strongly disagree, seeing that this nation was founded by people seeking religious freedom. ENDA would take away Christians’ and others’ right to stand up for Biblical morality and live by the dictates of their own moral conscience,” LaBarbera said. 

Matt Barber lost his job at Allstate due to pro-homosexual activism. He says it’s a canard that Christians are “focusing too much” on this issue. Why do some Christians feel guilty about opposing a homosexual lobby that is so brazen it now openly promotes homosexual activity as normal to innocent, young children? (See page from “King and King” children’s book below.)

Folks, my good friend Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues at Concerned Women for America and Americans For Truth Board Member, is right on in this excellent essay rebutting the increasingly common complaint that Christians are focusing too much on homosexuality. 

I find it curious at this juncture in American history when the homosexual lobby is at the zenith of its power — and on the verge of passing an oppressive, sweeping federal bill creating special workplace privileges based on people’s inclination toward aberrant sex — that Christians of all people would urge a de facto public policy and cultural retreat in opposing that movement.

Why are so many people of faith riddled with guilt in opposing a sin-based movement that threatens everybody’s religious and First Amendment freedoms? Perhaps it’s because many Christians, far from “hating gays,” as the trendy accusation goes, are intimidated by the liberal media and no longer agree with their Creator  that homosexual acts are an egregiously sexual sin.

From the pro-homosexual website EdgeBoston.com: 

A new study in the Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of The New York Academy of Medicine found that 32 percent of gay and bisexual men – nearly one in three – are victims of intimate partner abuse.

Little has previously been researched and documented about the patterns of intimate partner abuse in same-sex male couples. This study’s results provide an important addition to the body of knowledge on this subject, and a call to action for health providers treating men who have sex with men (MSM).

“Men in same-sex relationships experience abuse rates similar to those faced by women in heterosexual pairings,” said lead author Eric Houston of the Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago. “Intimate partner abuse among MSM does not receive the same attention as it does among heterosexual couples. As a result of the lack of attention, many MSM who need help may not be recognized unless the healthcare provider is appropriately trained and takes time to assess for abuse.”

Click HERE to read the whole article at EdgeBoston.com