Peter Sprigg of the Family Research
Council (FRC) has accused President Barack Obama of bullying federal
contractors who oppose gay rights.
The president on Monday signed an
executive order barring contractors doing business with the federal
government from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and
gender identity.
(Related: Obama
signs gay workplace protections order.)
Sprigg, a long-time opponent of gay
rights, blasted the president's action.
“President Obama has ordered
employers to put aside their principles, and practices in the name of
political correctness,” Sprigg said in a statement. “This level
of coercion is nothing less than viewpoint blackmail that bullies
into silence every contractor and subcontractor who has moral
objections to homosexual behavior. This order gives activists a
license to challenge their employers and, expose those employers to
threats of costly legal proceedings and the potential of jeopardizing
future contracts.”
Sprigg insisted that people of faith
should be allowed to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender workers.
“Religious faith is not simply a
matter of intellectual affirmation but of active practice. A
religious organization which is denied the power to require its
employees to conduct their lives in a way consistent with the
teachings of their faith is an organization which is being denied the
right to exercise its religion, period. People with deeply held
convictions regarding the morality of certain types of sexual
behavior should not be bound by the dictates of President Obama's
agenda.”
“The President's policies are keeping
the economy in the tank. He strangled the financial and health
sectors by passing a health care law that's trampling employers'
freedom and crushing their bottom lines. Now, as if those burdens
weren't enough, the President's party wants to tell companies how
they should run their businesses, and how they can and cannot
practice their moral convictions and religious faith. President
Obama is legislating without Congress. Now, the American people will
be left to sort out the costs to religious and constitutional
liberties resulting from this rule by decree.”