Yesterday, John posted Kerry Eleveld's piece, Doing the Right Thing for 2012, below. It's very good. She makes the case that we must continue the push for equality, even as Obama's reelection gets underway. And, she laid out what we should ask the President to do using his existing power. These asks are based on the initial requests made by the national LGBT organizations, notably HRC and NGLTF, to the Obama transition team. These were initially presentated by the groups at a December 2008 meeting attended by John Podesta and including now-campaign manager Jim Messina. (Funny how often Messina's name pops up when LGBT equality is involved.)
As President, Obama has the executive authority to do all of these items. He doesn't need a bill passed by Congress or a court ruling. They need to be done. From Kerry:
As President, Obama has the executive authority to do all of these items. He doesn't need a bill passed by Congress or a court ruling. They need to be done. From Kerry:
[W]e should concentrate our efforts on five broader initiatives that would incorporate many of the recommendations originally presented by NGLTF and HRC, but in a more comprehensive way. Of the suggestions made by NGLTF, for instance, over half of them took a piecemeal approach to providing nondiscrimination protections at the agency level as well as making those agencies more inclusive in areas such as data collection, definitions, and research.
Rather than assembling a patchwork of progress agency by agency, President Obama should issue executive orders or amend existing ones that set a government-wide precedent for equality in the following ways:
1) Directing the federal government to include LGBT Americans in all federal level data collection efforts.
2) Mandating that all federal contractors must have policies providing nondiscrimination protections for their employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
3) Prohibiting federal funds from being used to discriminate against LGBT Americans.
4) Prohibiting discrimination against military service members on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
5) Adding gender identity protections to President Clinton's executive order 13087, which protected civilian federal workers from bias based on their sexual orientation.
Rather than assembling a patchwork of progress agency by agency, President Obama should issue executive orders or amend existing ones that set a government-wide precedent for equality in the following ways:
1) Directing the federal government to include LGBT Americans in all federal level data collection efforts.
2) Mandating that all federal contractors must have policies providing nondiscrimination protections for their employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
3) Prohibiting federal funds from being used to discriminate against LGBT Americans.
4) Prohibiting discrimination against military service members on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
5) Adding gender identity protections to President Clinton's executive order 13087, which protected civilian federal workers from bias based on their sexual orientation.
Reasonable enough. Now, we need the administration to do it.
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