There’s nothing progressive activists hate more than a gay Republican. His mere existence undercuts their narrative.
From the vicious targeted harassment aimed at President Trump’s openly gay Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere to the attacks on U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell, the activist Left will seemingly do anything to take down gay people who don’t subscribe to their political dictates. So, it was only a matter of time before National Labor Relations Board Chairman John Ring earned their ire.
The openly gay and married Trump appointee has come under fire as “anti-LGBT” in a letter penned by the National Labor Relations Board Professional Association, a liberal-dominated, internal NLRB union. At issue was the anti-discrimination language, or lack thereof, initially proposed in the agency’s collective-bargaining negotiations with the union and its employees. It’s important to note that this language is entirely superfluous, and the NLRB is nonetheless bound by federal anti-discrimination law and subject to the Equal Employment Office’s protections either way.
In the letter, sent to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the union blasted Ring’s actions as a “giant step backwards” that denies “LGBTQ workers … equal treatment under the law.” The group accused Ring and other members of NLRB leadership of “discrimination” and “stripping LGBTQ employees of their rights.”
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said that “by proposing to eliminate protections for LGBTQ employees from its collective bargaining agreements, the NLRB — which is supposed to be a leader for workplace fairness — becomes the latest perpetrator of the [Trump] administration’s political assault on equal protection and equal employment rights for the LGBTQ community.”
These claims were picked up and echoed across the left-wing gay and transgender media ecosystem, with reports peddling the charges published in outlets such as the Washington Blade and LGBTQNation. The latter outlet woefully mischaracterized the situation with a headline reading, “Trump is trying to rescind LGBTQ worker protections at the National Labor Relations Board.”
There’s just one problem: It isn’t true. In a follow-up letter to Feinstein, Ring rebutted these charges.
“Rather than bargaining in good faith about their alleged concerns regarding the agency’s proposal’s effect on LGBTQ rights, the union’s leadership has attempted to bargain through the press before even discussing their concerns at the bargaining table,” he wrote. “The NLRBPA seeks to create public outrage using an issue they know is a flashpoint.”
“I am proud to be one of the highest-ranking, Trump-appointed government officials who is gay,” Ring continued. “LGBTQ rights are very important to me, and I take these issues seriously.”
And, even more importantly, “we deny the whole premise of their letter,” Ring told the Washington Blade. “The NLRB does not intend to remove or in any way diminish LGBTQ protections for our employees.”
At the end of the day, there should be a very high bar you have to clear before you effectively accuse someone of betraying their own class. Whether it’s calling a black person racist or attacking a gay administration official as “anti-LGBTQ,” these are very serious charges of bigotry to throw around without evidence. And sadly, this case is yet another instance where these kinds of accusations are made without anything at all to back them up.
This was just a dispute over nonbinding contract language in an early round of negotiations. The NLRB does not have the desire, nor even the authority, to remove legal anti-discrimination protections for its employees. NLRB employees are subject to and will continue to be subject to the same anti-discrimination laws as all other federal employees, regardless of what language appears in the collective bargaining contract.
Additionally, a senior NLRB official told me directly that all the union had to do was suggest adding this language, and the agency would have been on board. Instead, union activists went to the liberal press and Democratic politicians with a fake victimhood narrative.
Simply put, this is fake outrage over nothing. Shame on liberal union activists who would rather publicly slime a trailblazing gay administration official than address their issues at the negotiating table in good faith.
