The Political Science of President Obama's LGBT Employment Non-Discrimination Failure

BY ARI EZRA WALDMAN

President Obama missed an opportunity to simultaneously protect LGBT Americans and paint Mitt Romney into a corner when the President refused to sign an executive order banning LGBT workplace discrimination. Most Americans are baffled when you tell them that people can be fired simply for being gay; they think a ban on such discrimination already exists. More than 70 percent of Americans support the anti-discrimination law, including the version of Mr. Romney that ran for the Senate in 1994.

And, signing the executive order would fulfill yet another 2008 Obama campaign promise.
The White House offered a few tepid and unbelievable explanations for the President's refusal to sign the nondiscrimination executive order. At one point, the Administration said it was concerned about a possible lawsuit from a conservative federal contractor who might feel that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is his religious right.

That argument should strike even the most green civil rights attorney as baffling: where civil rights executive orders have been challenged in the past, the challenger "loses 100 percent of the time," as Freedom to Work Founder Tico Almeida told Current TV. Later, Administration spokespersons implied that an executive order is not a priority because "the time is right for a comprehensive legislative approach" by passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) through Congress. But, that position is even less tenable: Republicans control the House of Representatives and have shown less than zero interest in LGBT equality, let alone an inclusive ENDA.

We are disappointed. But, politics has to be more than tallying up your interest group's victories and losses and calling someone childish names. The political science of civil rights movements shows us that progress in war can emerge from loss in battle, and last week's fracas both proves how much progress we have made and can foster more progress by proving that pro-gay social positions are no longer the electrified third rail of American politics, but rather great boons to political success.


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