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Jack Nichols in Florida Today: 'Making Gays the Scapegoats' GayToday's Editor on White House Discrimination Measures Focus of Guest Editorial is Rollback of Federal Job Protection Compiled by GayToday

Cocoa Beach, Florida-A OpEd Guest Editorial by GayToday's editor, Jack Nichols, was published yesterday in Florida Today, a Gannett newspaper. Titled 'Making Gays the Scapegoats,' Nichols' OpEd said: "Tampering foolishly with the Constitution to impose his religion-based marriage dogma that would deny citizens same-sex civil marriages doesn't go far enough to satisfy the current occupant of the White House, a politician who boasts that he's "compassionate." "Now, the Bush administration is actively trying to roll back employment discrimination protections so that gay men and lesbians working in the offices of the U.S. government can be fired from their jobs and will have no recourse. GayToday's Jack Nichos "For the past 23 years, sexual orientation has not been allowed as a basis for firing gay men and lesbians in U.S. government offices. "Now, however, the Office of Special Counsel, or OSC, is in the midst of returning gays to an ugly period between the late 1940s and the early 1970s when Republican politicians launched an un-American crusade affecting those who share affectionate relationships with their own gender. "A scathing history of that frightening period, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gay Men and Lesbians by the Federal Government, written by David K. Johnson, was released barely two months ago. "An interview with the University of South Florida author and professor can be found at http://gaytoday.com/interview/010104in.asp "As Eric Hoffer notes in The True Believer, any mass political movement thrives without a god, but not without a devil. "Bush and company are turning gay men and lesbians into the devils they hope will draw voters' attention away from the largest U.S. deficit ever, joblessness, raiding Social Security and Medicare and unforgivable intelligence failures that launched a preemptive war in Iraq with no feasible exit strategy. "To assist in making gays Bush's scapegoats, the OSC has removed all information about filing claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation from its website and handbooks. "The OSC has stated publicly that it is re-evaluating its statutory authority to investigate claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation. "In a release on Feb. 27, Scott Bloch, Special Counsel of the OSC, said that the protection against sexual orientation-based discrimination originated in an Executive Order only five years ago. "However, a new letter from Elaine Kaplan, former Special Counsel in the OSC, called his claim "demonstrably inaccurate. . .indeed, I cannot imagine where you derived this understanding of the basis for OSC's pre-existing policy regarding sexual orientation discrimination complaints." "Kaplan went on to point out that the very documents that have been removed from the OSC website would have demonstrated her point clearly. "The administration is engaged in undermining protective policies implemented during the Reagan years and is now claiming that these have only been recently added. It is launching a thinly veiled attack on gay Americans, one that is being shoddily covered up by the OSC."

For More ... Related Stories Bush Administration Continues Its Rollback of Job Protections Federal Job Protection Faces Rollback by Bush Administration Historian Exposes U.S. Government's Anti-Gay Crusades Related Sites Jack Nichols Florida Today

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