President Obama’s reported plan to veto the defense spending legislation constitutes a “deeply disturbing” attack on religious liberty, according to a top Republican.
“It is deeply disturbing that President Obama would threaten a veto over what had, until now, been settled law on religious liberty,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday.
The National Defense Authorization Act is one of the few true must-pass pieces of legislation that Congress sends to the White House each year, making it a high-stakes theater for conflict between Republicans and Democrats. The outcome will be dictated, in part, by which side wins the messaging war over language that Democrats say would authorize defense contractors to discriminate against LGBT people, while Republicans say they are simply allowing religious groups to follow their beliefs.
“Just because a Catholic charity, for example, decides to do work for the federal government should not mean the charity must begin hiring individuals who do not share the charity’s religious mission,” Hatch said.
The issue arose after President Obama issued an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. “[T]his is a civil rights victory consistent with our founding principles,” Labor Secretary Tom Perez wrote in April. “The obligation not to discriminate covers every type of new and modified federal contract — from companies that build our highways and manage our IT infrastructure to those that run our cafeterias, produce our military uniforms and stock our supply closets.”
The breadth of the order alarmed religious groups that work with the government, such as military chaplains.
“Under [the executive order], the Muslim chaplain would be forced to use a vendor who disregards Islamic teaching on marriage, while the Catholic chaplain seeking ecclesiastical supplies must purchase from a vendor who ignores the church’s doctrine on sexuality,” The First Liberty Institute’s Mike Berry wrote in May. “What many may not realize is that all military chaplains are required to have the backing of an endorsing body. Any chaplain who runs afoul of the tenets and teachings of their endorser is likely to forfeit their endorsement, meaning they can no longer serve as a chaplain.”
In response, Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., authored an amendment to the defense bill stating that religious groups can qualify for exemptions to anti-discrimination laws that have already been provided by Congress. “You would have thought I killed somebody’s mother,” he said on the House floor.
Gay rights groups accused him of using the defense bill to win a sweeping policy victory. “This provision is terrible policy created by an even worse process — it was adopted in the dark of night despite bipartisan opposition and never having had a hearing,” the Human Rights Campaign’s David Stacy said. “This has no place in the annual defense bill.”
Hatch’s statement makes clear that the Russell amendment has a powerful supporter in the Senate, which did not include such a provision in its own version of the defense bill. House and Senate negotiators are currently working to resolve the differences between the two versions before voting on a final package to send to the president.
“These protections have been the law of the land for decades and ensure that religiously affiliated organizations are not forced to surrender their religious identity when they enter into agreements with the federal government,” Hatch said Tuesday.
