According to the Washington Post, the Executive Order signed by President Obama to prohibit workplace discrimination against gay, lesbian, and transgendered employees who work for federal contractors (and discussed by Mr. Torvik here) does not contain any religious exemptions for employers who think employing a gay, lesbian, or transgendered person violates the employer's religious beliefs. In reality, I suspect the issue is more accurately hiring since until today this kind of discrimination by federal contractors was not prohibited.
I hope and that the distinction Mr. Torvik (and others) make between the Hobby Lobby case and employment discrimination. I suppose we will find out in about a year.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out. By the way, I heartily recommend reading this Atlantic article by Molly Bell:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/how-hobby-lobby-split-the-left-and-set-back-gay-rights/374721/
It puts the whole thing in context, including that the version of ENDA (basically Title VII for gays) that passed the Senate did contain a broad religious exemption (broader than the one in Title VII itself) but after Hobby Lobby the gay rights movement has generally withdrawn its support for ENDA because of this -- even though passing ENDA was generally seen as one of the primary public policy goals of the gay rights movement.