WASHINGTON – Prominent evangelical leaders assailed a bill that would give special rights to homosexuals in the workplace, calling it bad policy and denouncing attempts to tie it with the black civil rights movement.
“In recent years there has been a strange reversal of things,” Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr., founder and chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, said Friday.
“[A]ggressive activists who are involved in gay rights have made an odd role reversal,” he continued. “In the name of liberty this group has begun to infringe upon the liberty and rights of others.”
Jackson was speaking in reference to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), HR 3685, which seeks to make it illegal for employers to make decisions on hiring, firing, promoting or paying an employee based on sexual orientation.
The bill, if passed, would add “sexual orientation” to a list of federally protected classes under a 1964 act that prohibits job discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Jackson, who represents thousands of black ministers, said the black civil rights movement is being “hijacked” by gay activists who claim the gay employment issue is similar to the black civil rights issue.
“I find it is an insult for myself as an African American that you are granting through this law special protection for sexual orientation that might only be imagined,” said the senior pastor of the 3,000-member Hope Christian Church in the Washington, D.C.-area.
ENDA seeks to add to the protected class “actual or perceived” sexual orientation, Jackson pointed out, while the other protected classes are “immutable” and “unchangeable” characteristics.
“Someone once said I was born black and I will probably stay black for awhile,” said the black Christian leader, drawing laughter from the media.
In addition, ENDA infringes on religious liberty and puts the integrity of faith-based ministries in jeopardy.
Hope Christian Church, for example, runs a daycare and aftercare program that reaches some 300 children.
If ENDA passes, children in the ministry could be sent “unclear signals” with Jackson preaching against homosexuality while the children are sent a “radically different” message by a church daycare employee.
The evangelical leader is also against the legislation because it expands civil rights protection on the vague basis of perception. In other words, an employee can sue their employer based simply on “perceived” sexual orientation.
Adding to Jackson’s comments, Colin A. Hanna, founder and president of the conservative grassroots organization Let Freedom Ring, pointed out that the current ENDA legislation includes some provision to exempt churches but no language for the exemption of parachurch organizations or pro-family movements.
An organization “whose entire focus” and “reason for being” is to promote a particular social view based on scripture would be forced to hire a person with a “diametrically opposing” view on the issue, Hanna contended.
