The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) may be voted on in US House this week. Please read this note and take action as recommended. Then please forward this note to everyone you know, and especially to anyone associated with a Christian business, charitable organizations, or religious school!

ENDA would prohibit employers from making employment decisions — such as hiring, promotions and firing — based on an individual’s “actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.” While the bill purports to exempt religious groups, it really doesn’t do that. The court has to decide if your purpose is sufficiently religious enough in character.

ACTION: Please tell your U.S. Representative in Washington D.C. to please vote ‘NO’ on ENDA (H.R. 2015)!

ENDA would add gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons to the list of federally protected groups included in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This bill would institutionalize homosexuality and other long condemned sexual and social behaviors to a protected right under the law, and it would punish employers, landlords and others who discriminate in any way against such persons.

ENDA will require the accommodation of language, dress and “gestures” by ENDA-covered individuals, including transvestites and others experimenting with their “gender identity” at public facilities that provide services for CHILDREN or whose facilities are frequented by children.

Please contact your Congressman today!

Background

Here is more information about ENDA (H.R. 2015) from our friends at the Family Research Council:

• ENDA affords special protection to a group that is not disadvantaged.
• The issue is not job discrimination: It is whether private businesses will be forced by law to accommodate homosexual activists’ attempts to legitimize homosexual behavior.
• The first “religious exemption” clause is very narrow and offers no clear protection to church-related businesses: Religious schools or charitable organizations, religious bookstores, or any business affiliated with a church or denomination fall outside this narrow definition, and could presumably be required to hire homosexual applicants. 
• The second “religious exemption” clause fails to offer protection for all hiring by church-related organizations or businesses. The position of a teacher of religion at a church-related school would be exempt, but, e.g., that of a biology teacher would not. Thus, most of the teachers and staff at a religious school would be covered by ENDA, which means that the church would be forced to hire homosexual applicants for such positions-despite the fact that their lifestyle would be in direct opposition to the religious beliefs of the organization or company. 
• It is unlikely that the “religious exemption” included in the bill would survive court challenge: Institutions that could be targeted include religious summer camps, the Boy Scouts, Christian bookstores, religious publishing houses, religious television and radio stations, and any business with fifteen or more employees. 
• ENDA violates employers’ and employees’ Constitutional freedoms of religion, speech and association. The proposed legislation would prohibit employers from taking their most deeply held beliefs into account when making hiring, management, and promotion decisions. This would pose an unprecedented intrusion by the federal government into people’s lives.
• ENDA would approvingly bring private behavior considered immoral by many into the public square. By declaring that all sexual preferences are equally valid, ENDA would change national policy supporting marriage and family.