News

Log Cabin Republicans Response to Workplace Protections Challenge by Reps. Kline and Walberg

December 8, 2014

Washington, D.C. - Late last week, in a quiet move likely designed to attract as little media attention as possible, Congressman John Kline (R-MN), Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, and Congressman Tim Walberg (R-MI), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, issued a letter to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Director Patricia Shiu demanding that the Obama administration suspend the implementation of its Executive Order on gay workplace discrimination until a 60-day period of public comment was conducted on the matter.

"Bring it on," Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director Gregory T. Angelo responded. "Unlike his hotly contested unilateral actions on immigration or minimum wage, President Obama's executive order providing workplace protections for gay federal employees is a simple extension of an executive order that was already in place under the administration of President George W. Bush. We hope that Director Shiu calls Congressmen Kline and Walberg on their ridiculous bluff - if she does, both Congressmen will soon discover what Log Cabin Republicans has been telling their offices for years: that 69 percent of Americans support workplace protections for the gay community - including 56 percent of Republicans. It may be extreme, but perhaps a public comment period is what it will finally take for Chairman Kline to realize just how out-of-touch he is on this issue, both with Americans and his own constituents, and finally push the Employment Non-Discrimination Act out of committee where he has kept it bottled up for the past 13 months."