Washington Post Editorial Board: “No Principled Reason” for White House Inaction on Executive Order
[Image: Screen capture from the front page of The Washington Post website this evening.]
The Washington Post editorial board tonight strongly criticized President Obama’s decision not to pursue an executive order prohibitting federal contractors from discriminating against their employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Post concluded, after referencing the president’s success in repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” that Obama “should again seize the mantle of leadership by issuing an executive order that prohibits the federal government from doing business with contractors that fail to guarantee basic fairness to their LGBT employees.”
The board, which previously editorialized in support of the order, led off with the Thursday, April 12, White house press briefing — which Metro Weekly detailed that afternoon — editorializing:
WHITE HOUSE press secretary Jay Carney spent a good chunk of his time during a briefing last week trying to explain why President Obama has declined to issue an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
Mr. Carney struggled for some eight minutes but was unable to give a satisfactory answer. That’s understandable, because there is no principled reason for refusing to extend such workplace protections to millions of Americans.
UPDATE @ 10:35P: One note: The editorial, despite repeatedly using the “LGBT” terminology on three occasions in the brief editorial, only references “sexual orientation” — and not “gender identity” — when discussing the specific language of nondiscrimination that applies to LGBT discrimination on four occasions.
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