By Bob Allen / Baptist News Global
This is an abbreviated version of the story. For the full story, click here.
The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty was among 42 religious, education, civil rights, labor and women’s organizations opposing an amendment to a defense policy bill that would exempt religious organizations from a 2014 executive order by President Obama barring federal contractors from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The House Armed Services Committee voted 32-29 during a late-night markup April 29 for an amendment to the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act offered after midnight by Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) — a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University and member of First Southern Baptist Church in Del City, Okla. — entitling “any religious corporation, religious association, religious educational institution, or religious society” seeking federal contracts to the same exemptions allowed by federal civil rights law and the Americans Disabilities Act.
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An April 27 letter from the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination said the Russell Amendment “would authorize taxpayer-funded discrimination in each and every federal contract and grant.”
“The government should never fund discrimination and no taxpayer should be disqualified from a job under a federal contract or grant because he or she is the ‘wrong’ religion,” the coalition said.
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