LaBarbera: White House helped craft 'loose' ENDA religious exception

by: Pam Spaulding

Mon Oct 22, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM EDT

Staff members for President Bush have helped congressional staffers work on "religious exemption" language for a new "anti-discrimination" proposal that actually would codify in federal statutes an anti-Christian bias, and that will make it harder for him to veto, according to an activist group.

"Americans For Truth has learned that a White House official has boasted to pro-family leaders attending a private administration briefing that White House staffers were involved in the negotiations to craft expanded religious exemption language for the new ENDA bill," according to Peter LaBarbera's Americans For Truth organization.

"At the briefing, the White House official did not commit to the assembled evangelical leaders that the president would veto [ENDA], saying that they will wait to see the bill's final language, according to our source. This is troubling in that vetoing ENDA in any form is regarded as a 'no-brainer' by pro-family activists, who are counting on Bush to stop it," he continued

LaBarbera said the word that White House staffers have been working on proposals makes the situation worse.

"Failure to veto ENDA would be a devastating defeat for pro-family forces and a huge gift to homosexual lobbyists. Call the president …. and urge him to 'please publicly pledge to veto ENDA ... in any form if it passes Congress,'" he said.

..."It must be remembered that top homosexual strategists now assert that their 'moral' claim (the right not to be treated differently based on their 'sexual orientation') trumps our religious/moral obligation to oppose homosexuality," LaBarbera said.

He also said the plan is built on house of cards, since there is no outbreak of homosexuals getting fired. Instead, it is Christians defending their faith in the public arena being mistreated, he said.

Actual Freeper Quotes

It's time to man the phones again folks.

Mailing Address The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Phone Numbers
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414 FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD Comments: 202-456-6213
Visitors Office: 202-456-2121
E-Mail Please send your comments to comments@whitehouse.gov.

It was the event in Crawford when “W” choked out on the pretzel. He didn’t have many brain cells to spare and being without oxygen damanged his brain enough for him to become a liberal.

wow. I haven't seen so much overt "the white house did this, the Bush administration did that" on a supposedly "conservative" forum since first coming here in 1998. They used to fax talking points. Now somehow they just send out thoughtwaves or give free samples of kool-aid to strategic, ummm, mouthpieces, and Poof! an instant plague of leftist rhetoric infects everyone with a freaking keyboard.

How is it leftist to be outraged by a report of White House supporting radical gay ideaologies? Granted the source isn’t the best but you weren’t attacking the source, you were attacking FReepers.

Let's all go into spasms because some official tattled some hearsay that might or might not be true. This sounds like the typical madeup-redmeat that some groups throw out to the dupes to stir them up AND typically generate fund raising donations from said 'hyped up dupes'.

Gawd how dare we question the Great Leader?

Yep, better get used to keeping your thoughts to yourself. Soon there will be special re-education camps for people who display inappropriate attitudes.

Unfortunately, it looks like the man I voted for has gone from “reaching across the aisle”, which is destructive (to our party and to our country) and disgusting, to “reaching across the border”, which is destructive and disgusting, to now, a “reach around” - also destructive and especially disgusting. What is wrong with this man?

Please, question the great leader. But don't confuse that with cheap smears based on dubious, sensationalist headlines found on fringe internet sites and echoed on internet forums.

Fifteen months left and counting of this retarded nincompoop. We will probably get someone worse, but I need a breather.

The Bushes should be flushed down the toilette of political history. Never again should a Bush hold any office of public trust.

As Rudder points out, "ENDA is not well-defined in this article..."

What is the specific language that touches upon free speech? Are we to believe the outlawing of employment discrimination based on "gender identity," (Great Caesar's Ghost! Admittedly plain silly, and admittedly enough to pull out the veto pen, if only because you want to save the courts from being choked with test cases) is infringement on the 1st Amendment? The Constitution trumps federal law, or its supposed to, I know...

This article raises more questions than it answers. I'll wait for the scholars steeped in the historic stream of Christianity and "apologetics" to inform me how this touches on free speech and, more specifically, how exactly (come again?) it reverses elements of the Civil Rights Act of 1967.

Before I help jam the White House switchboard again, I need logical talking points that put the left on defensive in the Media, not echo chamber whispers.

Look at what these laws have done and are being used for in England and Canada. That is a pretty clear indicator of where we are headed. Where pastors are jailed for their sermon. Where people are fined for quoting the Bible. That is the goal for these activists. Forget about condemning public officials who have sex in public restrooms when these laws are passed. Any reference to homosexuality in anything other than a positive context will be a jailable offense. Its happening in other countries and is coming to your neighborhood soon.

Remind me again, when is Bush’s last day in office? I can hardly wait.

Thanks for the phone numbers. I’ll be calling non-stop Monday to let these idiots know that American families are not going to stand for this alternative lifestyle garbage. This nation was founded on Christian values and yet now they are trying to ennact special rights legislation to protect some twisted sexual perverts. We need to stop this degenerate legislation in its tracks.