Friday, September 14, 2007

Enough already!

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives by the end of September.

ENDA will be marked up in the House Education and Labor Committee (mark up involves adding or deleting sections to the bill) on September 19 and a vote in the full house is expected the following week.

ENDA is federal legislation designed to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to federal law. If ENDA is signed into law, homosexuals, cross-dressers, drag queens, transsexuals, and even she-males will be considered protected minorities under federal law. ENDA applies to any business with 15 or more employees and will impact religious organizations as well. There follows a suggested letter you might address to your representative asking the bill to be defeated:

The Dear Representative:

I am writing to you to ask that you vote NO on H.R. 2015, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

Passage of ENDA is a primary goal of homosexual and transgender activists. They want to gain federally-protected minority status for sexual behaviors that are changeable and treatable.

ENDA will provide federal protection for a whole range of sexual orientations and Gender Identity Disorders (GID), which are listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Individuals with GID include cross-dressers, drag queens, transsexuals, and even she-males (individuals who go through only half of a so-called sex-change operation. They are male from the waist down and female from the waist up.)

ENDA will make these individuals a federally-protected minority group. These are individuals who have seriously disordered thinking about who they are. They need therapy, not federal minority status under the law.

Likewise, ENDA defines “sexual orientation” as: “homosexuality, bisexuality and heterosexuality” but also includes the phrase “actual or perceived” sexual orientation. This opens up ENDA to protecting a whole range of bizarre sexual orientations listed in the APA’s DSM.

Sincerely,

Now is the time. Speak up or forever hold your peace!

8 comments:

Marti said...

Christ said: "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them."

You said:

"ENDA applies to any business with 15 or more employees and will impact religious organizations as well."

You're either ignorant, or a liar.

From the bill:

SEC. 6. EXEMPTION FOR RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS.

(a) In General- This Act shall not apply to any of the employment practices of a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society which has as its primary purpose religious ritual or worship or the teaching or spreading of religious doctrine or belief.

(b) Certain Employees- For any religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society that is not wholly exempt under subsection (a), this Act shall not apply with respect to the employment of individuals whose primary duties consist of teaching or spreading religious doctrine or belief, religious governance, supervision of a religious order, supervision of persons teaching or spreading religious doctrine or belief, or supervision or participation in religious ritual or worship.

(c) Conformity to Religious Tenets- Under this Act , a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society may require that applicants for, and employees in, similar positions conform to those religious tenets that such corporation, association, institution, or society declares significant. Under this Act , such a declaration by a religious corporation, association, educational institution or society stating which of its religious tenets are significant shall not be subject to judicial or administrative review. Any such declaration made for purposes of this Act shall be admissible only for proceedings under this Act ."

Anonymous said...

“Now is the time. Speak up or forever hold your peace!”

Thanks for the invitation.

Unlike you most of us have to work for a living for our food and shelter. We don’t live off of donations from the collection plates. We don’t have our housing provided or luxury cars given for us to drive. We have to pay our own utilities and taxes and do not sponge off the generosity of the working class like you do to survive. Few of us have free health care.

I run a Transgendered Support website where our mission is to lower our 31% suicide rate. In a survey over 50% of our users have had at least 1 suicide attempt by their 20th birthday. This rate is almost always a direct result of the hate and discrimination that you and your kind spread like the plague. While it is bad enough to be born gay or with GID people like you always try to twist the knife in even deeper. By the way Cross Dressers and drag queens do not have GID and homosexuality is NOT in the DSM. any longer. It is likely that GID will be dropped at a conference in 2011 as most Psychotherapists no longer believe it is a mental illness.

Thousands of us cannot get jobs because of the fear and ignorance driven by false prophets like you against us. Intelligent people know violent storms are being driven by global warming and not by us. Many educated religious nuts claim that it God’s wrath because of LGBT people. Trust me if I had the power to create a volcano I’d light one up right under where you sit.

We are not your enemy but you have made yourself ours. Worse you spread it from your pulpit in hateful venomous words spreading bigotry and ignorance in the name of Almighty God. LGBT people just want to work live and love just like everyone else. Unfortunately we do need protection from bigots like you.

Laura Amato

Wolfgang said...

I can see the Pharisees are still around. Honestly, Friar Malloy, you openly mock Jesus with your smug self-righteousness and hate.

Anonymous said...

Yawn.

"Chromosomes are long, stringy aggregates of genes that carry heredity information. They are composed of DNA and proteins and are located within the nucleus of our cells. Chromosomes determine everything from hair color and eye color to gender. Whether you are a male or female depends on the presence or absence of certain chromosomes."

http://biology.about.com/library/weekly/aa091103a.htm

Milehimama @ Mama Says said...

I called - thanks for the heads up!

Laura,
It's funny, but I've never heard that depression is completely and totally the fault of others. It's easier to blame a scapegoat than to examine why there is a connection/comorbidity between transgendered and depression.

And, though you state that GLBTQ's want to live and love just like everyone else, I thought the whole point was that they DIDN'T do it like everyone else???? Isn't that what makes them a minority, instead of a generality?

The good news is that God does not judge us by what we think of ourselves - but rather by our actions. So no matter how depressed or confused you are about who you are, you are still welcome to take up your cross and follow Him.

Anonymous said...

To the first three commenters:

Religious organizations are not limited to those which are primarily worship (ie. parish, synagogue, etc.) but include relief organizations who are first on the spot at disasters, hospitals, social welfare organizations, educational institutions and so on. These have already been significantly impacted by those who insist that they must employ people who don't believe in the character and basis of their mission and give them "benefits" that are in direct contradiction to the beliefs and mission of the organization (eg. Catholic healthcare organizations hounded through the courts to provide artificial contraception as a healthcare benefit).

So Father is quite prudent in pointing out that giving protected status, even preferential status, to an action that is morally repugnant to many people and against the moral teachings of many religious organizations, will in fact give an opening for these actions to be rammed down the throats of these organizations and the people who support them.

As for the 31% suicide rate website, perhaps a suggestion: that its members cloak or even stop the activities that are turning them in upon themselves (and evidently self-destructively) and turn outward toward those whose physical and emotional needs are so great that they overwhelm the capacities of the faith-based organizations to meet them.

BTW, if you were a regular visitor to Father's blog, or even bothered to read his bio on the right, you would see that at 85 he is still in teaching ministry--far from living in luxury from others' work, he is still working for a salary far less than given to any lay person and long after most lay people retire, so that he can bring education and the light and joy of Christ into the lives of the young. By their fruit you will recognize them indeed.

Wolfgang said...

Mallys wrote, "...that giving protected status, even preferential status, to an action that is morally repugnant to many people and against the moral teachings of many religious organizations, will in fact give an opening for these actions to be rammed down the throats of these organizations..."

First, ENDA doesn't give protected status to *actions*, but to *people.* Whether a person is straight, gay, lesbian, transgendered, transsexual, genderqueer, etc.,those labels tell you nothing about how a particular individual lives his or her life. We are a very diverse community.

Second, religion is also currently protected under ENDA, giving *you* protected status, so a gay-owned business is forced to hire a conservative Christian. But the business owner also has the right to expect that religious employee to treat his other employees, and customers, with respect. The same holds true in reverse.

But, going further, you religious people get an extra special privilege in that religious organizations are exempt from ENDA's protections.

Mallys wrote, "As for the 31% suicide rate website, perhaps a suggestion: that its members cloak or even stop the activities that are turning them in upon themselves..."

It is my understanding that the 31% suicide rate applies to *untreated* transsexuals. According to the document “Medical Therapy and Health Maintenance for Transgender Men: A Guide for Health Care Providers,” R. Nick Gorton MD, Jamie Buth MD, and Dean Spade Esq., (www.nickgorton.org), The siucide risk drops dramatically in transsexuals after receiving medical treatment: eg. hormone replacement therapy and surgery. In female to male transsexuals (transmen), it drops to less than 1%. The document also states that the post-treatment suicide rates for transsexuals of both sexes is about the same as for the general population. That is: For transmen, it’s the same as for non-trans men and for transwomen, the same as for non-trans women.

Mallys wrote, “TW, if you were a regular visitor to Father's blog, or even bothered to read his bio on the right, you would see that at 85 he is still in teaching ministry--far from living in luxury from others' work, he is still working for a salary far less than given to any lay person and long after most lay people retire, so that he can bring education and the light and joy of Christ into the lives of the young. By their fruit you will recognize them indeed.”

That’s great, but it doesn’t excuse purposefully trying to harm a particular community.

Milehimama wrote, “It's funny, but I've never heard that depression is completely and totally the fault of others.”

So, if a child is abused, emotionally or physically, by family members, peers, and society while growing up because he or she is “different”, it’s the child’s fault if he or she suffers from depression? You can’t be serious.

Milehimama @ Mama Says said...

I am serious.

Depression is caused by many factors, of which upbringing is only a part.

Everything from low blood sugar/lack of regular meal times, to traumatic events all interplay - and there is a genetic factor that we know is there and that has not been nailed down.

I do stand behind my assertion that there has been no serious investigation into the comorbidity rate of "alternate lifestyles", and depression.