Tuesday June 22, 2010
Obama Admin to Force Businesses to Give Gay Partners Unpaid Leave
By Peter J. Smith
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 22, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The White House announced Monday that they would expand the definition of a 1993 federal law, with the result that many employers in all 50 states would be forced to extend family and medical leave to homosexual partners.
Pro-family advocates, however, are denouncing the policy as blatant illegality, saying that it clearly contravenes the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
A current law known as the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) stipulates that private employers in charge of a company with 50 or more employees must give their workers twelve weeks of unpaid leave if they need to take care of a newborn, son or daughter, or a “spouse” with “a serious health condition.”
However, a new policy from the Labor Department’s wage-and-hour division will now extend those definitions to include same-sex partners and their children – even if the homosexual employee seeking unpaid leave has no legal relationship with the partner’s child.
The department does this by changing the definition of “son and daughter” under the Family and Medical Leave Act so that anyone who takes care of a child – not just married spouses and natural parents – qualifies to have parental rights.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins called the decision “outrageous” and accused the president of continuing “to defy federal law and exceed the limits of its constitutional authority” by extending rights to same-sex couples which have zero basis in the FMLA.”
“The DOMA expressly forbids treating same-sex partners as ‘spouses’ under federal law,” said Perkins.
Perkins added that the Labor Department ruling would “for the first time force private employers in all fifty states – even those which have amended their constitution to forbid legal recognition of same-sex relationships – to extend benefits to just those relationships.” He said that only Congress, not the Executive Branch, can make such a change.
“President Obama cannot continue to ignore the law and the Constitution and legislate from the White House in order to pander to his left-wing constituency,” said Perkins. “If the President can continue to defy the rule of law as it pertains to marriage, which is the cornerstone of society, what will be next?”