June 16, 2014

President Obama Plans To Do Something For LGBT Workers That No President Has Ever Done

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rainbow_flag_and_blue_skies.jpg">Ludovic Bertron</a>/Wikimedia Commons

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President Obama is planning on signing a new executive order preventing federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees, a White House official told the Associated Press on Monday. The order is expected to be finalized in the next few weeks and is an extension of previous orders banning employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin among federal contractors and subcontractors.

“The protections will reach over one million LGBT workers across the country, making it the single largest expansion of LGBT workplace protections in our country’s history,” ThinkProgress reports.

The White House official would not say when Obama plans to sign the order, but confirmed that the president told his staff to prepare a measure for his signature. On Tuesday, the president will travel to New York for an LGBT fundraising gala with the Democratic National Committee.

Monday’s announcement comes after years of pressure from gay rights groups calling for broader action on the issue. Last November, the Senate passed legislation banning workplace discrimination against LGBT workers, but the bill has since gone nowhere in the House.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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