Posted on 07/06/2005 9:44:01 AM PDT by Calpernia
Legislation that would guard federal employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was introduced last week with the support of 11 lawmakers.
The bill, known as the Clarification of Federal Employment Protection Act (H.R. 3128), is in response to Senate testimony by Special Counsel Scott Bloch when he stated that the Office of Special Counsel is limited by law in its ability to protect gay employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The legislation, proposed by House Government Reform Committee ranking member Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., would amend the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act affirming "that federal employees are protected from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and to repudiate any assertion to the contrary."
"At a time when our federal employees are working tirelessly on behalf of the nation, we should be doing our utmost to ensure that all are protected against discrimination," Waxman said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears to have abandoned a long-standing bipartisan interpretation of the law that protects federal employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation."
The proposed law, if passed by Congress and signed by President Bush, would add to the list of prohibited forms of discrimination against employees or potential employees that include race, gender, national origin, age, handicaps, marital status and political affiliation.
As chief of the Office of Special Counsel, Bloch is charged with heading up independent investigations and prosecutions of merit system violations in the federal workplace. He maintained before a panel of senators on May 24 that federal law does not give him the authority to prosecute discrimination against federal employees for their sexual orientation status.
"We do not see sexual orientation as a term for class status anywhere in statute or in the legislative history or case law, in fact, quite contrary to it," Bloch said at the hearing. "We are limited by our enforcement statutes as Congress gives them ... The courts have specifically rejected sexual orientation as a status protection under our statutes."
In response to an inquiryon the proposed legislation, OSC officials referred a reporter to Bloch's Senate testimony and an April 2004 agency release that announced after a two-month review that OSC had concluded it has the authority to prosecute cases of discrimination on "actual conduct."
While the Bush administration has maintained a position banning discrimination against federal employees on the basis of sexual orientation, Bloch ordered the review to determine the legality of the agency's policy in prosecuting cases of sexual discrimination in agencies and had the information on filing sexual-orientation discrimination complaints removed from the agency's Web site and brochures.
Not included in the announcement was Bloch's viewpoint on case law supporting sexual orientation discrimination cases, which he believes blocks the agency from prosecuting cases involving a federal manager firing or disciplining an employee merely for being a homosexual, according to his testimony. If the manager took action against the employee for actions, in private or public, the agency would have the authority to prosecute.
The information on filing sexual-orientation discrimination complaints has not been returned to the agency Web site.
OSC spokeswomen Cathy Deeds said that Congress has twice tried to pass legislation that would give homosexuals "protected class status," allowing OSC to enforce Bush's policy forbidding sexual orientation discrimination, but both attempts failed.
"[I]t is now in the hands of Congress," Deeds wrote in an e-mail to Government Executive.
Co-sponsors of the bill include Reps. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Danny K. Davis, D-Ill.; Eliot L. Engel, D-N.Y.: Mark Foley, R-Fla.; Barney Frank, D-Mass.; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md.; Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz.; Christopher Shays, R-Conn.; and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.
That may not be a bad idea. Say a ten day season with no bag limit. Should really reduce the problem.
OH! You mean hiring quotas don't you. (never mind)
How about a bill to bar employers from sexual orientation discrimination lawsuits? God forbid a so-called Conservative even propse such a bill. Do we have any of those left in the Conress anyway?
Later horrible pingout.
Does it include protections for heterosexuals?
There are - you can go underground or out of business. These people are not kidding, and they target businesses and people they consider enemies of their agenda.
Recently - within the last week - there have been several articles about a family run inn located in Vermont who are being sued (hmm - brain malfuction alarm tells me it might be a criminal matter of discrimination, not a civil suit, but either way it is bad bad bad) by a couple of lesbians. Reason? The owner - who is Catholic, and lives at the inn with his wife and several children - said he would have a hard time getting enthusiastic about hosting a wedding reception for the two lesbians. (The inn proprietors host several wedding receptions a year.)
The lesbians are targeting this family because, as Catholics, they are "not enthusiastic" about helping two women have a wedding reception.
Thanks very much for the links! I'll save them and read them.
Here is another goal that they have accomplished:
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
It is surreal how many of the goals have been accomplished.
::away from keyboard::
Ciao!
Right on. Consider the questionnaire you are given when you donate blood... if you are a man, have you ever had sex, EVEN ONCE, with another man since 1977? ... if so, we don't want your blood, it's worthless. You are as risky as an IV drug user.
You are right. This keeps making the rounds here and is, to say the least, highly dubious. Where in the heck did these "goals" come from? An official Communist party document? If so, Where can a copy be obtained?
AIM Report: Hillary Clinton's Biggest Cover-Ups
In her book, however, Hillary does write about some of her radical associates. She notes a meeting in 1969 with David Mixner of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, an anti-Vietnam war protest group that came under investigation by the House Internal Security Subcommittee for its involvement with communists and backing from Hanoi. Mixner would go on to become a leading homosexual activist, adviser to and friend of President Clinton. He was credited with delivering some six million votes to Clinton in 1992.
Speaking of which, Edward Klein's new book on Hillary has some related stuff:
Richard Poe, "The Woman Who Would Be President"
SNIP
A Wellesley classmate of Hillary’s recalls: "The notion of a woman being a lesbian was fascinating to Hillary. But she was much more interested in lesbianism as a political statement than a sexual practice… A lesbian… was a dynamic young woman who had thrown off the shackles of male dominance. Hillary talked about it a lot, read lesbian literature, and embraced it as a revolutionary concept."
Klein never states that Hillary slept with a woman — though he names several who are "rumored" to have shared her bed. Klein focuses instead on Hillary’s allegiance to the radical "gender feminism" which she imbibed at Wellesley and which — according to Klein — she never renounced.
SNIP
I think those goal DID come from an original communist document. I used to know what it was, but mostly the list survived, but unfortunately, without the original source. I should go and dig, and see if I come up with the original source, if I do, I'll post it and keep it handy for future reference.
You'll have better luck than me if you do. Everytime this appears (every few months or so), I ask for a source but nobody ever provides one other than to site the Cong. Record or Skousen. Those are secondary sources, however. What is the primary source? If this is a party document, where can it be obtained? Nobody seems to have any idea or paricularly care. Frankly, I don't think there is scuh a document. The wording sounds too much like Dr. Evil to be very believable!
Here is what I could determine by a quick research.
The goals are listed in a book: "THe Naked Communist" by W. Cleon Skousen, who was a senior FBI agent under J. Edgar Hoover, the police chief of Salt Lake City, Utah, and a full professor at Brigham Young University.
Florida Congressman A.S. Herlong Jr. entered this list into the Congressional Records in 1963.
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm
http://www.spongobongo.com/em/em9817.htm
I don't know where Skousen got his list, he may mention it in his book. Considering, that he was an FBI agent, maybe they got hold of some commie documents.
But I have read elsewhere, that the communists were working hard on destroying the capitalist countries, starting with the US, "from within". It was a major strategy for them, so it's quite possible they outlined those items.
It is also interesting that those goals first saw the light of day in 1958, before a lot of them have been accomplished, that now are totally accepted, so it's not as if someone looked around today and created the goals retroactively, to fit today's status.
As I said in my previous post, those are secondary documents. I know of many great historians I respect but I would expect that each and every one of them back up any controversial claims or statements with primary documents. The Congressional Record, btw, is not a good source. Every wacko, including Maxine Waters, etc., can insert whatever they want in that. Again, this wording sounds like something out of Dr. Evil. Where does it come from?
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