1312 ENDA is a Mirage
As the political left was coming of age, its various strategists and leaders realized that all-out frontal attacks on the establishment would not succeed. America’s sense of exceptionalism was an intimate part of her sense of mission in the world. Her natural conservatism and Judeo-Christian underpinnings were too powerful for a quick socialist makeover.
Instead, as Saul Alinsky taught so effectively, the way forward must be through patient incrementalism and strategically utilized mirages. The revolution had to work by cracking foundations first. Eventually, the superstructure would fall.
The success of that strategy over the last forty years has been impressive. Probably the most impressive illusion so far has been Obamacare. We now have substantial evidence that the entire law was built on deception, secrecy and distortion. In a unilateral move that defied the will of most Americans and commandeered one-sixth of the economy, the left managed to inject governmental lordship into some of the most personal individual liberties we have.
On November 7th, the left made its second attempt at its next conquest which is also built on mirages. On that day, with the help of ten gullible Republicans, the U.S. Senate approved the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Its sole objective is to normalize homosexuality as a new protected class with special protections.
Just as with the utopian smoke and mirrors of universal health care, ENDA is based on a deception and designed to control a contrived problem. It is a deception to claim that an employer who rejects public expressions of private sexuality in the workplace is somehow being immoral – homosexuality can, after all, only be publically recognized by its visible behavior. The supposed problem follows naturally from the deception.
The most stunning feature of the ENDA mirage is its hypocrisy. First, it invokes congressional authority to regulate interstate commerce (Article I section 8) and enhance the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. So, in order to force employers to accept special protections for a sexual lifestyle, the Senate wants the American people to believe that there is an economic crisis between business and the homosexual community and that the nation systematically deprives homosexuals of “life, liberty or property without due process”. Both history and economic data expose those claims as utter and complete fabrication.
It is unadulterated hypocrisy to assert an outward commitment to fairness, equal opportunity and religious freedom but presume that a morally charged behavior, homosexuality, has preeminence over the discernments and public expressions of faith. It pontificates about acceptable locations and environments for the exercise of faith by limiting that First Amendment right to only religious settings. Clearly those responsible for this monstrosity are familiar with stereotypical religion but have not a clue about Biblical faith.
The ACLU’s website exposes the left’s true agenda best in its statement about a freedom of religion provision in the National Defense Authorization Act. “The law contains troubling provision[s] (my emphasis)… to accommodate the conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs of all members…” Fair? Equal? Hardly. Autocratic socialism-yes.