WASHINGTON — President Obama, declaring himself on “the right side of history,” called on Congress on Monday to ban job discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans as he signed an executive order doing so for workers of federal contractors.
In a ceremony at the White House, Mr. Obama noted that in much of the country, companies can fire employees based on their sexual orientation. “That’s wrong,” he said to an audience of supporters. “We’re here to do what we can to make it right — to bend that arc of justice just a little bit in a better direction.”
Before signing the order, Mr. Obama noted that Congress has debated such legislation for decades without agreeing to it, and he implored his supporters to raise the temperature on lawmakers even as they have achieved great momentum in the drive to legalize same-sex marriage through much of the nation. “I’m going to do what I can with the authority I have to act,” he said. “The rest of you, of course, need to keep putting pressure on Congress.”
The federal government already prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation for its own work force, but the order Mr. Obama signed on Monday would extend that to companies that do work for the federal government. It also explicitly protects for the first time federal workers based not just on sexual orientation but also gender identity, meaning transgender employees.
But Mr. Obama rebuffed requests by religious groups to exempt them. Religious groups argued that they should not be forced to go against their beliefs in order to win or keep federal contracts available to others. Advocates for religion said the order would lead to a court fight. Mr. Obama did not address their concerns in his brief remarks on Monday.
The president’s order applies to only a fraction of those who would be affected by congressional legislation, but he has been under heavy pressure from a critical Democratic core constituency to take action on his own without waiting for lawmakers.
His order adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of categories protected among federal contractors first approved by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. And it adds gender identity as a protected category to a 1969 directive by President Richard M. Nixon that applies to federal employees, which was later amended by President Bill Clinton to include sexual orientation.
Mr. Obama noted that 18 states and more than 200 cities and localities have banned workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, but that is fewer than the number of states that allow same-sex marriage.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” he said. “But I hope as everybody looks around this room, you are reminded of the extraordinary progress that we have made. Not just in our lifetimes. But in the last five years. In the last two years. In the last one year. We’re on the right side of history.”
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