TALKING POINTS: THE EMPLOYMENT NON-DISCRIMINATION ACT (“ENDA”) AND THE ROAD TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

• ENDA abolishes gender. ENDA requires an employer to acknowledge and recognize the concept that sex can be changed or that it is a fluid concept. ENDA requires forced acceptance of a very radical notion that gender is merely a product of personal expression completely unrelated to a person’s biology or physiology.

• ENDA requires access to shared facilities. ENDA mandates that employers give access to shared facilities, such as restrooms and other similar facilities for those who are of the same sex, but have an opposite gender identity (i.e. a male identifying as female), or of those who have notified their employer of an ongoing gender transition (i.e. a male transitioning to a female). Those employees would be allowed to share restrooms and other similar facilities with members of the opposite sex.

• ENDA mandates dress and grooming standards. ENDA requires that an employer allow an individual who has previously been through “gender transition” or has notified their employer that they are in “gender transition” to dress as the gender to which the employee has transitioned or is transitioning. ENDA would force employers to hire individuals that may be contrary to the employer’s image it wishes to portray.

• ENDA harms the institution of marriage. In states where same-sex couples are not allowed to marry, employers do not have to give benefits conditioned on marriage to same-sex couples, but employers may not otherwise discriminate against same-sex couples because they are unmarried. An employer under ENDA cannot reserve marital employee benefits for opposite sex married couples.

• ENDA threatens the passage of a federal marriage amendment. By including sexual orientation and gender identity in the historical basis of protected class status, ENDA makes traditional sexual morality a form of discrimination.