Once people call on the government to create laws on who a business can hire and fire, you can expect agencies that govern the terms of hiring and firing to grow exponentially as political pressure is put on the government by special interest groups to be treated specially.

Eric Holder’s Department of Justice just ruled that transgenders cannot be discriminated against.

“Attorney General Holder announced today that the Department of Justice will take the position in litigation that the protection of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 extends to claims of discrimination based on an individual’s gender identity, including transgender status.”

There’s no way to stop this runaway train.

Businesses should be allowed to hire and fire anybody they want for any reason. If a person doesn’t like the requirement a business sets for employment, that person can go elsewhere or start his or her own business and set different hiring regulations.

The move by the DOJ, “was met with some criticism. After the announcement, Peter Sprigg, senior director for policy studies of the Family Research Council, criticized Holder, saying that the original intent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act most certainly did not cover transgendered people. ‘Probably not one person thought they were passing a bill to protect men who wanted to become women or women who wanted to become men,’ Sprigg said.”

The same is true of the original intent of the RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). What was originally designed to stop “racketeering,” has been used to go after people who publicly opposed abortion.1 It didn’t matter that the architect of the law argued that RICO had never intended such an application.

Once jurisdiction was given over hiring practices, the law expands in application exponentially.

For example, the state of Kentucky wants to require that the Christian ministry Answers in Genesis (AIG) cannot show religious preferential treatment in hiring. “The state’s new conditions are clearly illegal,” AIG president Ken Ham declared. “We can cite both federal and state laws that permit religious preference in hiring, like the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That’s why atheist groups can and do discriminate in their hiring.”

Then there are the EEOC regulations that allow religious organizations to hire within the confines of their religious parameters:

“Religious Organization Exception: Under Title VII, religious organizations are permitted to give employment preference to members of their own religion. The exception applies only to those institutions whose ‘purpose and character are primarily religious.’ Factors to consider that would indicate whether an entity is religious include: whether its articles of incorporation state a religious purpose; whether its day-to-day operations are religious (e.g., are the services the entity performs, the product it produces, or the educational curriculum it provides directed toward propagation of the religion?); whether it is not-for-profit; and whether it affiliated with, or supported by, a church or other religious organization.”

Answers in Genesis meets some if not all of these criteria exceptions, but the evolving nature of law in our nation could nullify these exceptions at any time. If overturned, the government could demand that a church hire an atheist youth leader or even the senior pastor.

Don’t say it couldn’t happen. The California State University system, which has 23 campuses, has ruled that on-campus religious organizations cannot discriminate against people of other religions when it comes to leadership positions.

As a result, “local chapters of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an evangelical Christian group with 860 chapters in the United States,” was “de-recognized” as an official on-campus organization. “The university system says InterVarsity’s leadership policy conflicts with its state-mandated nondiscrimination policy requiring membership and leadership in all official student groups be open to all.”

The word “discrimination” is being expanded and redefined on a daily basis by special interest groups and activist judges. There is no telling where it will stop.

1. “RICO laws were successfully cited in NOW v. Scheidler, 510 U.S. 249, 114 S. Ct. 798, 127 L.Ed. 2d 99 (1994), a suit in which certain parties, including the National Organization for Women, sought damages and an injunction against pro-life activists who physically block access to abortion clinics. The Court held that a RICO enterprise does not need an economic motive, and that the Pro-Life Action Network could therefore qualify as a RICO enterprise. The Court remanded for consideration of whether PLAN committed the requisite acts in a pattern of racketeering activity.” [↩]