Barber on ENDA: Barney and Barack’s Anti-Religion Agenda

The following column by Matt Barber, a Board Member of Americans For Truth, appeared in The Washington Times April 15, 2010.

TAKE ACTION: Urge your U.S. Congressman and Senators to oppose ENDA (S. 1584 in the Senate and H.R. 3017 in the House): 202-224-3121; 202-225-3121; www.congress.org.

By J. Matt Barber

Still suffering indigestion from an Obamacare forced feeding, America may yet have to choke down some bitter dessert. Democrats’ characteristically mislabeled Employment Non-Discrimination Act or ENDA (S. 1584 in the Senate and H.R. 3017 in the House) apparently will be under consideration relatively soon.

Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, ENDA co-sponsor and one of two openly homosexual members of Congress, recently signaled to Boston’s Edge Web site that ENDA will be on the plate sometime after lawmakers return from Easter recess. “The fact is there was no chance of getting [Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi] to focus on this until health care was done. Health care is now done,” he said.

According to its leftist proponents, ENDA would merely insulate people who choose to engage in homosexual conduct (sexual orientation) or those who suffer from gender confusion (gender identity) against employment intolerance. In truth, however, this legislation effectively would codify the very thing it purports to combat: workplace discrimination.

ENDA would force – under penalty of law – Christian, Jewish or Muslim business owners to adopt a secular-humanist viewpoint, ignoring all matters surrounding sexual morality while making hiring and firing decisions. Unlike race or sex, homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors are both volitional and mutable. Nonetheless, and despite the reality that such conduct is in direct conflict with every major world religion, thousands of years of history and uncompromising human biology, ENDA would compel business owners with 15 or more employees to leave sincerely held religious beliefs at the workplace door and submit to the demands of the homosexual activist lobby.

This is government-sanctioned viewpoint discrimination. It is no different from forcing a deeply religious business owner to hire and accommodate an “out and proud” adulterous “swinger.” It directly alienates the unalienable rights of people of faith. It pits the government directly against the free exercise of religion and is, therefore, unconstitutional on its face.

During his second term, President George W. Bush issued a Statement of Administration Policy on ENDA, highlighting its unconstitutionality: “[ENDA] is inconsistent with the right to the free exercise of religion as codified by Congress in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”

President Obama, however, has publicly endorsed the bill and promises to sign it into law should it pass. This is in perfect keeping with his demonstrated belief that the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers are more of a suggestion than a requirement. Mr. Obama has appointed at least one like-minded ENDA heavy. Chai R. Feldblum is a lesbian activist and sexual nihilist lawyer who in the past has publicly supported legalized polygamy and bisexual polyamory.

One of Mr. Obama’s recent 15 controversial recess appointments, Ms. Feldblum was sworn in on April 7 as a commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). As ENDA’s chief framer, Ms. Feldblum would be charged with its primary enforcement. This is the classic fox-guarding-the-henhouse scenario.

In the past, Ms. Feldblum has repeatedly and candidly summed up the mindset behind the bill. She has publicly stated that the battle between religious freedom and unfettered sexual license (aka homosexual “rights”) is a “zero-sum game,” meaning the two cannot possibly coexist in harmony. It’s a “winner takes all” approach.

When asked about the Christian business owner or religious organization that morally objects to hiring people openly engaged in the homosexual lifestyle, Ms. Feldblum snapped: “Gays win, Christians lose.” And where Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed right to religious liberty comes into conflict with the postmodern concept of homosexual “rights,” Ms. Feldblum has admitted having “a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

Of course, her analysis is entirely arbitrary and completely unsupported by any reasonable constitutional interpretation or federal precedent. But to Ms. Feldblum, Comrade Obama and his kooky cadre of revolutionary advisers, little things like the U.S. Constitution and federal precedent are but obnoxious speed bumps on the fast track to a brave new world.

J. Matt Barber is director of cultural affairs with Liberty Counsel and author of the book “The Right Hook – From the Ring to the Culture War” (Freedom Press Canada Inc., 2009).