Seth Wenig/Associated Press

Gay rights advocates have been trying to get Congress to move legislation extending workplace protection to gay, lesbian bisexual and transgender people for nearly two decades. Finally, on Wednesday, a Senate Committee approved legislation that would do just that — the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

The ayes included three of the committee’s Republican members — Orrin Hatch of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mark Kirk of Illinois — refreshing bipartisanship and encouraging progress even if enactment doesn’t come this year. (Passage of the bill by the full Senate remains uncertain and the House Republican leadership isn’t even planning to bring it up).

There would be a lot more reason to cheer, though, if the bill did not include an egregiously broad religious exemption, ignoring the concern expressed in a May 10 editorial that it would leave too many jobs outside the measure’s protection, in effect authorizing discrimination the bill is supposed to remedy.



The exemption extends way beyond houses of worship — encompassing personnel at hospitals and universities who perform no real religious function — and is out of keeping with the approach of earlier civil rights statutes and rulings. Does anyone really think there should be a religious defense to firing a transgender doctor when a private hospital merges with one affiliated with a religious group?

“Courts have said time and again that firmly held religious beliefs don’t justify discrimination based on race and sex,” said James Esseks, director of the A.C.L.U.’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual and AIDS Project. The legislation should apply the same rule for sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Now that ENDA is finally moving, its supporters need to insist on scaling back the religious exemption before it becomes law.