WASHINGTON, DC — Today, building on recent momentum behind an Executive Order to ban discrimination among federal contractors based on sexual orientation or gender identity, Freedom to Work -- a national advocacy organization working to end workplace discrimination for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans — announced a new letter of support, signed by 72 members of Congress.
The sign-on letter, led by Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and co-signed by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA), includes nearly half of the House Democratic Caucus and expands on similar statements of support by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who said last July that such an Executive Order is "long overdue." Recent polling by the Human Rights Campaign indicates that 73% of likely voters in the upcoming 2012 general election would support such an Executive Order from the Obama Administration.
"Having worked with Rep. Frank Pallone and his staff on persuading nearly half of the Democratic Caucus to sign this congressional letter to President Obama, I know firsthand that our LGBT community owes Mr. Pallone a debt of gratitude for his strong leadership promoting workplace fairness," said Tico Almeida, the founder and President of Freedom to Work. "Now that more than 110,000 people have signed the Freedom to Work online petition, more than 70 members of Congress have signed Mr. Pallone's letter, and 73% of the American people have expressed support for this policy in recent polling, it is clear that 'We Can't Wait' any longer for the president to sign the executive order adding LGBT workplace protections to millions of American jobs."
Last month, Freedom to Work led an online petition effort on Change.org to support such an Executive Order, collecting over 110,000 signatures in just a few weeks. And President Obama, while campaigning in 2008, made a promise to enact just such a policy for federal employees and federal contractors.
Almeida continued, "For more than 40 years, African-Americans, Latinos and women have been allowed to file discrimination complaints with the Labor Department based on President Lyndon B. Johnson's executive order for federal contractors. We're simply urging President Obama to sign an order that will give the exact same workplace protections to LGBT Americans."