Civil Rights and Discrimination

Conflicting Rights

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From the Log Cabin Republicans’ fact sheet on the HHS Obamacare Revisions:

“The Government can’t force doctors to perform procedures that they are medically, professionally or morally opposed to performing. Remember, this is a ruling on the type of procedures, not the type of patients.”

Also from the LCR fact sheet:

So was anything “rolled back?” No – you can’t ‘roll back’ something that was never actually implemented.

So this isn’t LGB, just T(ransgender)? Yes, just gender identity.

So do medical care providers now have license to discriminate against transgender individuals for things like cancer, a broken arm or the common cold? The latitude now allowed is not in the patient – it’s in the course of treatment.

Update: Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Boystock v. Clayton County, it’s likely the revised rule will fall. That will make activists happy but means continued conflict with faith-based healthcare providers who the state will require to perform gender-reassignment procedures that violate deeply held faith convictions. As Justice Alito wrote in his dissent:

Healthcare benefits may emerge as an intense battleground under the Court’s holding. Transgender employees have brought suit under Title VII to challenge employer-provided health insurance plans that do not cover costly sex reassignment surgery. Similar claims have been brought under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which broadly prohibits sex discrimination in the provision of healthcare.
Such claims present difficult religious liberty issues because some employers and healthcare providers have strong religious objections to sex reassignment procedures, and therefore requiring them to pay for or to perform these procedures will have a severe impact on their ability to honor their deeply held religious beliefs.

To the secular left, that is of no consequence, but it should be to those who value the liberties historically protected by the U.S. Constitution.

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The Descent of the Human Rights Campaign

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Brad Polumbo writes that the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT lobby, once “worked with Republicans initially to advance the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, an early piece of legislation that would have added sexual orientation as a protected class under federal anti-discrimination employment laws.”
More recently, however, “the group put out a statement blasting as ‘deeply dangerous’ Republican congressman Chris Stewart, who introduced a gay and transgender rights bill [the Fairness for All Act], because it disagreed with some of the exceptions his bill contained.”

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Fairness for All 2

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Because the original thread on the Fairness for All Act was getting too long, I’m continuing it here.

Plus an observation: Ever since the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was introduced, whenever it looked like a version of ENDA had a chance at passing, the LGB (later LGBTQ) political lobbies would move the goalposts so that it would not have enough support—for example, adding gender identity in 2007 (which was too much even for a Congress with supermajority Democratic control during the first two years of the Obama administration, when no action was taken on ENDA), and now by replacing ENDA with the over-reaching Equality Act, which would, among other things, roll back religious conscience protections under the bipartisan Religious Freedom Restoration Act that Bill Clinton signed.

A cynic might say that the Human Rights Campaign’s worst nightmare would be an anti-discrimination bill that could actual pass, because once it did a major impetus for HRC’s fundraising could be undermined.

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Decision Pending

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As I’ve said before, it would be interesting if the court were to rule that gay and transgender people are protected from workplace discrimination, and then rule that religious business owners can’t be compelled to create messages and participate in ceremonies that violate their faith. That, however, probably won’t happen.

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To the High Court

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An interesting take. We’ll see what happens when the case is argued.

Meanwhile, while LGBTQ activists argue for their rights, other LGBTQ activists seek to take away the rights of others, which again may be headed to the Supreme Court. It would be interesting if the court were to rule separately that gay and transgender people are protected from workplace discrimination, and religious business owners can’t be compelled to create messages and participate in ceremonies that violate their faith.

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