Obama gay rights
President Obama Signs Executive Arrange Protecting LGBT People from Workplace Discrimination
July 21, 2014 12:00 am
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: 212-549-2666, media@aclu.org
WASHINGTON – President Obama signed an executive order today to guard lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from workplace discrimination during a ceremony at the White House.
The order bars businesses that contract with the federal government from engaging in discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It also explicitly bans discrimination against federal employees based on their gender identity, building upon prior actions by the administration to reach basic fairness and explicit protections to transgender people.
The following statement can be attributed to ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero:
"This is one of the most important actions ever taken by a president to eradicate LGBT discrimination from America's workplaces. By signing this order, President Obama is building on a bipartisan tradition, matchmaking app back over 70 years, of barring discrimination without exception when taxpayer dollars are involved. While there remains much work still to do to ach
Dissecting President Obama's 'Evolution' on Gay Marriage
March 25, 2013 — -- The Supreme Court will hear arguments in two landmark cases on same-sex marriage this week, nearly 11 months after President Obama first announced his support of marriage for same-sex couples, a decision he reached as part of an "evolution" over the years.
In an interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts in May, President Obama stated his personal support for same-sex marriage, becoming the first president to assist marriage publicly for queer and lesbian couples.
"For me, personally, it is essential for me to travel ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married," Obama told Roberts in May of 2012.
While voicing his encourage at the time, the president said that he had no intention to "nationalize" the issue and hoped it would be left up to the states.
"I have to reveal you that part of my hesitation on this has also been I didn't want to nationalize the issue," he told Roberts. "There's a tendency when I weigh in to think suddenly it becomes political and it becomes polarized. What I'm saying is that differe
Ian S. Thompson,
Senior Legislative Advocate,
ACLU
With less than a year left in his presidency, Barack Obama and his administration are taking steps to cement his legacy in key areas. Without ask, one of the most consequential has been on LGBT equality. President Obama and his administration contain done more in the last seven years to advance LGBT rights than all previous presidents combined.
Having already accomplished so much, what work remains? Simple: The government should cure discrimination against lesbians, same-sex attracted men, and bisexual people as sex discrimination because it is sex discrimination.
Last week, the Los Angeles Times editorialized for the administration to produce it clear that existing protections against sex discrimination also prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. According to the editorial board:
Generations ago, it would own seemed obvious that “sex discrimination” referred only to treating male employees or job applicants better than female ones (or vice versa). But discrimination against women and discrimination against gays and lesbians (and transgender people) all are rooted in stereotypes about “proper” expre
Obama's Quiet Mission to Export Gay Rights Overseas
While the world was watching America's gay rights transformation, the Obama administration was going after a quieter mission to export the same freedoms overseas to places fond of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and eastern Europe.
The U.S. has deployed its diplomats and spent tens of millions of dollars to try to block anti-gay laws, punish countries that enacted them, and tie financial assistance to respect for LGBTQ rights. It was a mission animated in part by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's declaration that "gay rights are human rights."
Yet the U.S. encountered occasional backlash, including from some rights groups that said public pressure by the West made things worse.
"I walked into a very backward environment in 2009," said Susan Rice, President Barack Obama's national security adviser and former U.N. ambassador. In an Linked Press interview, Rice said both the U.N. and U.S. had avoided taking on the issue.
She argued that despite a cascade of pressing global crises, the White House had tried to "deal with the urgent and deal with the important, and even if the key is, some might declare, option
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