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Lawmakers Urge
Bush To Enforce Ban
On Gay
Discrimination
by Paul
Johnson, 365Gay.com from the Web, June 21, 2005
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Washington -- Eighty-five U.S.
Representatives Monday called on President Bush to preserve the longstanding
prohibition against discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal
civil service.
In a letter to the President they urged Bush to rein in Scott Bloch, director of
the Office of Special Counsel, reminding the President that he has affirmed is
his administration's policy that LGBT workers are protected under an Executive
Order signed by President Clinton.
Bloch's office is responsible for investigating complaints by federal workers
but he has consistently refused to look into allegations of harassment by LGBT
workers.
Among the signatories to the letter are Representatives Barney Frank (D-Mass),
Eliot Engel (D-NY), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), George Miller (D-CA), and Henry Waxman
(D-CA).
The letter was sent in response to Bloch's flat refusal during an appearance
last month before a Senate subcommittee to enforce the policy.
The letter urges the President "to take whatever steps you can to see that Mr.
Bloch complies with the policy you have promulgated -- and which was supported
by a large majority of the House of Representatives in 1998 when a challenge to
it was presented."
Appearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs
subcommittee on oversight of government management, the federal workforce and
the District of Columbia, Bloch was grilled by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.).
Bloch told Levin that despite the Clinton Executive Order and the Bush
administration's pledge to honor it, "We are limited by our enforcement statutes
as Congress gives them."
Levin then reminded him of the statement issued by the White House last year
that said, "Longstanding federal policy prohibits discrimination against federal
employees based on sexual orientation. President Bush expects federal
agencies to enforce this policy and to ensure that all federal employees are
protected from unfair discrimination at work."
Levin asked Bloch if he did not believe the President's statement was binding on
him.
"It is binding on me," Bloch said, "but it is not something I can prosecute in
my agency. ... I am limited by the enforcement statutes that you give me."
At that point Levin asked if Bloch would recommend Congress amend the law to add
sexual orientation to the protections for federal employees. Bloch
declined to take a position saying that it was a matter for Congress not him to
comment on.
Bloch has been under fire for more than year for stonewalling complaints of
discrimination by LGBT federal workers.
In February 2004 he ordered references to sexual orientation removed from the
Office of the Special Counsel website. Since 1998, when President Bill
Clinton issued an executive order prohibiting bias in the civil service, the OSC
has taken that to include sexuality.
A month after the references disappeared from the OSC website Bloch said gay
workers were no longer protected.
After intense pressure from Federal Globe, an organization for gay and lesbian
workers, and from Democrats on The Hill, the White House said it would honor the
Executive Order signed by President Clinton
But, last September, with Bloch's approval, several union contracts negotiated
with various branches of the government removed the list of categories that are
protected replacing them with the more nebulous phrase "any class protected by
law."
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