With all the focus on same-sex marriage and sex-selective abortions, a bill that has anti-religious implications is quietly nearing a vote in the Senate.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee will consider the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, on Tuesday. Conservatives are describing ENDA as anti-business, anti-free speech and anti-religious freedom.
Intended to give special protections to homosexuals and cross-dressers, the bill would restrict small businesses and muzzle those with a biblical worldview.
ENDA applies to an “individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity,” which is defined as “the gender-related identity, appearance or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, with or without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth.”
For example, if a supervisor instructed a male employee he could not use the women’s restroom, the employer would be in violation of ENDA. ENDA states that an employer may not “limit, segregate or classify the employees or applicants for employment of the employer in anyway that would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment or otherwise adversely affect the status of the individual as an employee, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“The implications of ENDA are outrageous and shocking,” says Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “With the many pressing issues facing our country, it is astounding that Senator Harry Reid and the Democrat-controlled Senate would waste their time pressing a radical and destructive ideology. ENDA would hijack every employer to conscript them to join the sexual anarchist agenda so favored by the Obama administration.”
