Sexual orientation and gender identity are conceptually different from race

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Are Not Like Race: Why ENDA is Bad Policy

by Ryan T. Anderson

Sexual orientation and gender identity are conceptually different from race, and beliefs about marriage as the union of man and woman are conceptually and historically different from opposition to interracial marriage. Adapted from testimony delivered on Monday March 16 before the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

As I explain in one of the two reports I have submitted to the Commission, all citizens should oppose unjust discrimination, but the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is not the way to achieve that goal. ENDA threatens fundamental First Amendment rights. It creates new, subjective protected classes that will expose employers to unimaginable liability, and it would increase government interference in labor markets in ways that could harm the economy.

Yet ENDA’s damage is not only economic. It would also threaten the freedom of citizens and their associations to affirm their religious or moral convictions, such as that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and that maleness and femaleness are not arbitrary constructs but objective ways of being human. ENDA would treat expressing these beliefs in an employment context as actionable discrimination.

ENDA does not protect equality before the law. Instead, it would create special privileges that are enforceable against private actors. Employers should respect the intrinsic dignity of all of their employees, but ENDA is bad public policy. Its threats to our freedoms unite civil libertarians concerned about free speech and religious liberty, free marketers concerned about freedom of contract and government interference in the marketplace, and social conservatives concerned about marriage and culture.

• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Are Ambiguous Terms
• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Are Conceptually Different From Race
• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Are Historically Different From Race

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