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House Committee Holds Hearings On Employment Non-Discrimination Act

By Howard M. Friedman

Yesterday, the House Committee on Education and Labor held its first hearing on H.R. 3017, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009. The bill would prohibit employment discrimination, preferential treatment, and retaliation on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by employers with 15 or more employees. The bill includes an exemption for any "corporation, association, educational institution, or society that is exempt from the religious discrimination provisions of title VII of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 pursuant to section 702(a) or 703(e)(2) of such Act." A webcast of the hearing and transcripts of witnesses' statements are available on the Committee's website.

The testimony by Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, endorsed the the bill's anti-discrimination provisions as stemming "from a core teaching shared by an array of faith traditions." he said that the religious institutions exemption has broad based support. However Craig L. Parshall, Senior Vice-President of the National Religious Broadcasters, criticized the religious institutions exemption as inadequate. More broadly, he argued:

Neither the Congress nor the courts have jurisdiction over the religious beliefs of people of faith. Holding the faithful in contempt because they advance unpopular religious doctrines itself evidences a form of cultural discrimination. Christian ministries that object to those sexual preferences which are in clear violation of the standards of the Bible are standing on a long and well-worn road.... The rights to preach and practice those beliefs spring from a Bill of Rights that is two hundred and twenty years old....

Full post as published by Religion Clause on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).