FRC: Attorney General Circumvents Congress, Overrides Parental Concerns in Transgender Memorandum

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Dec 18, 2014, 06:55 ET

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Family Research Council today took U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to task for a December 15 memorandum saying that "transgendered" persons should be given a special status under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

FRC Senior Fellow for Policy Studies Peter Sprigg released the following statement:

"Parents are deeply concerned that giving a special status to transgender persons will lead to troubling situations for their children, and religious leaders are left unsure how this arbitrary new rule will affect hiring within their ministries. This is another example of the Obama administration circumventing the role of Congress in imposing its own radical re-interpretation of the law. It seems safe to assert that not a single member of Congress in 1964 would have believed that they were granting special rights to people who want to reject or change their biological sex.

"Even court precedents saying that 'gender stereotyping' can be a form of sex discrimination cannot justify this sweeping conclusion. The belief that only women should be nurses or only men can operate power tools is 'gender stereotyping;' the belief that 'sex' is an immutable biological reality is not.

"The limited exemptions in Title VII mean that applying this theory nationwide would require employers with legitimate concerns-such as religious organizations and child care centers-to hire men who pretend to be women and women who pretend to be men.

"The government simply has no business overriding parental concerns and telling religious organizations that they must place transgender individuals in role-model positions. Such threats to parental rights and religious liberty should be immediately repudiated by the next presidential administration," concluded Sprigg.

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SOURCE Family Research Council