Employment Non-Discrimination Act - Arguments in Opposition To ENDA

Arguments in Opposition To ENDA

Ed Vitagliano, director of research for the American Family Association (AFA), a conservative Christian organization, wrote in 2007 that there was "no real problem of discrimination against homosexuals." He expressed concern about the impact of anti-discrimination laws on religious organizations. He cited a lack of clarity around whether the narrow exemption would apply to support staff and lay employees in addition to churches and clergy. Consumer surveys show that self-identified gay individuals likely have higher incomes than the average US household, and ENDA opponents argue that many gay people hold positions of cultural influence as well.

The Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) fears that the legislation will have a negative impact on school children, in that ENDA would threaten a stable and supportive learning environment. A non-discrimination policy would eliminate schools' ability to avoid hiring against transgender teachers. The TVC is concerned that parents are not being adequately informed of the presence of transgender teachers in their children's classrooms. It argues that children should not be "subjected to man's bizarre sexual transformation" because in its view transgender individuals are "seriously mentally disturbed". The TVC argues that individuals cannot change their sex, even with surgery, and that it is impossible to transition from one sex to another.

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