Institute on Religion and Democracy Press Release
July 21, 2014
Contact: Jeff Walton office: 202-682-4131, cell: 202-413-5639, e-mail: jwalton@TheIRD.org
“President Obama’s new executive order compelling all federal contractors to affirm the latest LGBTQ orthodoxy escalates the ongoing culture war against traditional mores and religion.”
-IRD President Mark Tooley
Washington, DC—Religious groups will not receive an exemption from an executive order signed this morning by President Barack Obama banning “discrimination” based on sexual orientation or “gender identity” by federal contractors.
The order adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of specially protected categories that apply to federal contractors, and it adds gender identity to sexual orientation as a protected category for federal employees. The order could institutionalize federal discrimination against all religious groups and persons affirming natural marriage, traditional sexual ethics and the biological reality of gender.
A June letter sent following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby-Conestoga Wood decision requested that the President include explicit religious freedom protections in any executive order regarding LGBTQ employees of federal contractors.
The letter, which was organized by Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance President Stanley Carlson-Thies, was signed by religious leaders including National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America Executive Director for Public Policy Nathan Diament, National Christian Hispanic Leadership Conference President Samuel Rodriguez, and Obama Spiritual Advisor Pastor Joel C. Hunter.
Officials from World Relief, World Vision, World Concern, Food for the Hungry and Samaritan’s Purse are signatories, along with numerous Christian Colleges and Universities. Several denominational leaders also signed, including officials from the Assemblies of God, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Wesleyan Church, Presbyterian Church in America, Church of the Nazarene, Christian & Missionary Alliance and others.
IRD President Mark Tooley commented:
“President Obama’s new executive order compelling all federal contractors to affirm the latest LGBTQ orthodoxy escalates the ongoing culture war against traditional mores and religion.
“Kudos to those religious leaders who defend liberty of conscience and dignity for all persons against an increasingly intolerant state and secular culture that seek to eradicate traditional faith and practice from public life.
“Religious groups adhering to transcendent truths beyond the present age now have the special role to argue for freedom for ALL persons and to oppose the growing intolerance for any dissent from the reigning zeitgeist. Freedom of speech, conscience and religion are precious gifts essential to justice and democracy.”
Comment by Michael C on July 21, 2014 at 8:00 pm
As Peter said in his first sermon in Acts, “Save yourselves from this perverse generation.”
Comment by MarcoPolo on July 22, 2014 at 8:19 pm
Social justice for the Greater Good, should be the goal here.
Discriminating against an individual who may be wrestling with their sexual identity is still discrimination. They don’t have to be black, foreign, or alien anymore, to be protected.
Get used to it!
Comment by Jeff Stevenson on July 22, 2014 at 9:10 pm
Oh, BS. You’re way too old to live to see pedophilia legalized, but I bet you’re still hoping.
Calling the approval of sexual perversion “social justice” is just sick, but not surprising to hear that from nudists and other flakes.
Comment by MarcoPolo on July 22, 2014 at 9:27 pm
Jeff,
Whether I live for another day, or another decade, matters not in the scheme of social justice.
I’m not asking for the things that you describe, just that our fellow brothers and sisters who are LGBT, wish to live in a free country. Away from the hatred that seems to be directed at them, just for being different than you.
By that, I’m presuming you are “straight”, as well as narrow minded?
You might want to study the differences between sexual identity and perversion. They are not interchangeable.
One is a human nuance of gender…the other is a crime!
Peace, Brother!
Comment by shortcake12 on July 23, 2014 at 9:30 am
Just because Christians do not agree with the lifestyle does not mean they hate them.
Comment by Darin Davis on July 26, 2014 at 7:19 pm
we Will pray for their deliverance and that your mind will be set free from the powers of darkness that Homosexual and the other are demonic !!! God did not make them that way !! It’s a choice !! and they can be set free by the blood of Jesus !!!! I bind the lies of the devil !! In the name of Jesus !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comment by MarcoPolo on July 26, 2014 at 7:42 pm
Dear Darin,
Do whatever you must do to make these things go away (from you). Providing of course, that it’s peaceful…like prayer, etc.
I can’t find anything wrong with having loving souls like yourself, praying for me, and those in the “darkness”. Thanks!
Comment by shortcake12 on July 23, 2014 at 9:27 am
The “Greater Good” for who exactly? Certainly not for Christians who believe this goes against the things they believe. But hey they’re always wrong..right?