Gay rights activists have turned their attention to US President Barack Obama now that the Senate has passed a historic measure to outlaw workplace discrimination against gays, urging him to sign a long-sought-after executive order that would have the same effect, though on a much smaller scale.
The quick shift underscores the reality that the bill is unlikely to ever reach Obama’s desk. While the anti-discrimination measure passed comfortably on Thursday in the Democratic-controlled Senate, it may never get a vote in the Republican-led House because of House Speaker John Boehner’s opposition.
“We call on President Obama to send a clear message in support of workplace fairness by signing this executive order,” said Chad Griffin, president of the gay advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.
However, gay rights groups and the White House appear to have differing views of the opportunities presented by that political landscape. While activists take Boehner’s opposition as a clear sign the president should act on his own to extend workplace protections to gays and transgender people, White House officials see an opportunity to cast Republicans as outside the mainstream on gay rights.
“We will use this as an opportunity to ramp up pressure on Republicans to act on the bipartisan legislation that was passed in the Senate,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would bar employers with 15 or more workers from using a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity as the basis for making employment decisions, including hiring, firing, compensation or promotion. Religious institutions and the military would be exempted.
Sixty-four senators, including 10 Republicans, voted on Thursday for ENDA, the first major gay rights bill since US Congress repealed the ban on gays in the military three years ago. Outside conservative groups have cast the bill as anti-family, while Boehner argues it is certain to create costly, frivolous lawsuits for businesses.
If the president signs an executive order, it would contain the same protections as the Senate bill, but they would apply only to people working for federal contractors. That constitutes about 20 percent of the nation’s workforce.
Obama backed an executive order along those lines when he was running for president in 2008, but has deferred to Congress since taking office.
In recent days, White House officials have not directly ruled out Obama signing an executive order, but they have tamped down expectations that he would take such action quickly, before knowing for sure how Boehner and House Republicans plan to respond to the Senate passage of ENDA.
Obama aides also say they remain hopeful that sustained pressure might push Boehner to allow a vote on the measure, even if the majority of Republicans would probably vote against it.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion