If the road to hell is paved with good intentions there is a superhighway under construction in the Congress. Periodically, Congress, acting as the national scold, steps into the breach and attempts to make all the kids on the playground like each other. Rarely do these attempts work out as well in practice as they do on paper.

The laudable goal of removing racial discrimination in hiring had led to the travesty of affirmative action which has spawned not only a grievance based industry but has actually been harmful. Incredibly, this session of the Supreme Court saw a case argued which effectively asserted that it was racially discriminatory to not use race as a factor. So much for the whole “quality of his character” nonsense.

The Americans with Disabilities Act looked like a great idea at the time. Who could be against making “reasonable accomodations” to persons with disabilities. But now we discover that the ADA means that a of trucking companies can be forced to employ alcoholic truck drivers.

If you like these outcomes you’ll love the cleverly misnamed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). The purpose of the law is to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or, most perniciously, on the basis of gender identity.

For the first time the federal government is proposing to make a those engaging in a lifestyle choice a protected class. Using the guise of preventing discrimination, the bill actually seeks to make mainstream sexual deviancy via an emotionally driven law.

If you want to know how this movie ends you have no need to look further than the way laws against racial discrimination have been abused by scammers and shakedown artists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The real issue, once this law is passed, will not be non-discrimination but being able to demonstrate to a court, while a defendant in a lawsuit, that the fact you haven’t discriminated in hiring or promotions. How does one prove a negative? By statistics. How do you get your statistics right? By discriminating against heterosexuals in hiring and promotion.

The text of the law will just be the opening. We’ve already seen in Colorado a “transgender” boy be allowed to use the girls’ restroom at school because his gender identity tells him he’s a girl. The idea that a workplace could refuse to allow this is just ridiculous because the employer would have no ability to take action to prevent it without engaging in discrimination.

Most alarmingly, there is no provision for any exemption based on religious belief for other than actual religious organizations. So while a religious denomination could not be sued for refusing to ordain homosexual clergy, it is equally clear that charitable organizations as well as schools with a religious character would be subject to the law regardless of the beliefs of the denomination with which they are affiliated. This completely inadequate protection of religious liberty is not satisfactory to those pushing the ENDA, they are demanding that the religious exemption be removed.

No one likes being accused of discrimination but every day employers make choices that are discriminatory. How many morbidly obese people work at health clubs? Discrimination against the homely is well documented. Why do employers run criminal background and credit checks? Because they seek to discriminate against those persons who have criminal convictions or have demonstrated difficulty in managing their finances. Indeed, some employers are advertising the fact that they discriminate against smokers as a good thing.

As we’ve seen since homosexual marriage has become the new big thing that the people pushing this are not of the live and let live variety. They are petty, vicious, spiteful, and vindictive and their goal is not to be able to live their private lives as they wish but to make society at large celebrate their particular deviancy.

Anyone in favor of free markets and free people should oppose this travesty.