White House kills hope of non-discrimination executive order

[ProSense]

White House kills hope of non‑discrimination executive order

by Scott Wooledge

When President Barack Obama addressed supporters at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in June of 2009, he said:

Now, I've said this before, I'll repeat it again -- it's not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans petitioning for equal rights half a century ago.

Wednesday it was made clear, the President and his team are apparently counting on the patience of the LGBT community.
The White House dashed hopes the President would deliver an executive order requiring federal contractors to institute non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation and gender identity. From Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly:

Today, however, a senior administration official tells Metro Weekly, "While it is not our usual practice to discuss Executive Orders that may or may not be under consideration, we do not expect that an Executive Order on LGBT non-discrimination for federal contractors will be issued at this time. We support legislation that has been introduced and we will continue to work with congressional sponsors to build support for it."

Metro Weekly has reported in March that, when a candidate for president in 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama said he would support a sexual orientation and gender identity nondiscrimination policy for federal contractors if elected president.

Several sources outside the administration familiar with the process told Metro Weekly in January that a proposed expansion of the federal contractor nondiscrimination executive order to include sexual orientation and gender identity has been given the OK by both the Labor Department, which oversees federal contract compliance, and the Justice Department and that the executive order proposal is at the White House.

Leader Nancy Pelosi was among the first of what eventually became more than 70 lawmakers urging the administration to take this move. A Change petition had collected over 110,000 signatures urging the president take this step.

The announcement came just a day after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced a joint congressional oversight committee would be looking into allegations of hostile work environment and unlawful dismissal a gay employee has made in a lawsuit filed against the Library of Congress.

Reactions after the fold.

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/12/1082653/-White-House-kills-hope-of-non-discrimination-executive-order

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1. some squishyness on this report

in the correction:

"An earlier version of this story stated that White House officials said no executive order would be signed prior to Election Day. No specific timing was discussed by White House officials, although multiple attendees tell Metro Weekly that they were left with no doubt that the White House's decision not to proceed with such an order at this time would last through the election."

Question I have is, would it benefit or hurt the effort by this President to get the support he needs for some permanent legislation? Is there just no expectation that there will be a bill that will pass during this presidency? I'm well aware of the dithering by other presidents and other Congresses, but this WH, this President did engineer DADT repeal legislation without an executive order, although there was some pain and anguish while waiting and similar calls to end the bleeding with a wave of his pen.

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2. White House kills hope. That says it.

There are no reasons or excuses that make discrimination alright. Sad to see such arguments made, although no longer surprising considering the last few days here.
Trying to excuse harm done to innocent people is disgusting. No 'moderate' language can hide that fact.

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3. I guess my point was that there was both hope and a period of anquish surrounding the DADT repeal

This resembles the same form of legislative effort that maybe we shouldn't be too cynical about, given the experience with the DADT repeal. It's much better to have that as a law, rather than an executive order which can be overturned. This President has said he's for the legislation and maybe it's not too much to hope that he can make it happen.

Now, I'm just not sure that I'd want a fight like this before the election. I don't think a bill will get passed with the heightened politics of the elections, so I'm not seeing the point in making a stand with the exec order right now IF there's a sincere attempt being made to organize the votes to pass a bill -- and I think there is.

The attempt to make it look like I"M some sort of demon for trying to figure out what it's going to take to make a PERMANENT change in the law is DISGUSTING and just wrong. It's just unnecessarily inflammatory rhetoric to suggest I'm 'apologizing' for anyone. I'm just pointing out a familiar conflict between this President wanting a permanent change in the law and being willing to hold his fire while he negotiates one from this divided and mostly hostile Congress. I didn't invent that situation and neither did he. At least he's working to make the change, and the WH certainly didn't preclude an executive order at a future date IF there isn't movement from Congress. So Kick me around for pointing out the political realities and looking forward with optimism.