GetEQUAL Takes Issue With Religious Exemptions In ENDA Bill

GetEQUAL is on the warpath about the religious exemptions in the Senate version of ENDA.

This religious exemption is so broad that even religiously-affiliated hospitals and schools will still be able to discriminate against LGBT workers. This broad religious exemption will set a harmful precedent for future LGBT gains, and also threatens to set back the work of our allies in the reproductive justice movement. As a matter of fact, Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) have both recently stated that their only hope for preventing full LGBT equality under the law is by using these religious exemptions for their own good.

GetEQUAL has launched a Twitter campaign demanding that Senators amend the exemptions portion.

UPDATE: More from Chris Johnson at Washington Blade.

Shortly after filing cloture on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) held a 30-minute conference call with Nevada LGBT leaders late Thursday in anticipation of the bill coming to the Senate floor this week. Among those on the call was Derek Washington, lead organizer for the LGBT group GetEQUAL Nevada, who said he raised with Reid concerns about ENDA’s religious exemption.

That language would provide leeway for religious institutions, like churches or religious schools, to discriminate against LGBT workers in non-ministerial positions even if ENDA were to become law. It’s broader than similar exemptions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for categories of race, gender, religion and national origin. “I mentioned to him that it was something that just was not palatable,” Washington said. “I asked him what he felt about it, and he felt that the main thing to do was get the vote taken care of, and then deal with it later. As often times happens, you don’t get something perfect the first time around, you go back and fix it later, so that was basically his take on it.”