House Republicans send letter protesting LGBT protections in new US trade deal - Polidicks

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/16/house-conservatives-lgbt-protection-trade-pact-977288 Protections in the new North American trade pact for LGBTQ people are roiling conservative lawmakers in the House, who are urging President Donald Trump to rescind them. They are displeased that the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement contains requirements that workers be protected from discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity. “A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy,” reads the letter, which carries the names of 40 lawmakers and was sent Friday. “It is especially inappropriate and insulting to our sovereignty to needlessly submit to social policies which the United States Congress has so far explicitly refused to accept.” It’s one more landmine in the path of Trump’s biggest trade achievement. Already, labor groups have expressed some concern that mechanisms to enforce new worker protections aren’t sufficiently strong and hinted that the incoming Democratic House might seek changes. Now the conservatives, including House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), are hoping to revise the deal before it gets signed. Another signatory is Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), a Ways and Means Committee member who is leaving Congress at the end of the year. One congressman who led the effort on the letter said the issue could be a "deal-killer" for him supporting the pact. "This is language that is going to cause a lot of people to reconsider their support of the trade agreement, and to the point that it may endanger the passage of the trade agreement unless something is done," Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) told POLITICO in an interview. Adjusting the deal is a tall order. The LGBT provisions were a Canadian priority — part of the so-called progressive trade agenda championed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and described as a “big win” by his government. USMCA’s Chapter 23 on labor requires countries to implement policies that protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. Another provision in the same chapter requires countries to promote workplace equality with respect to gender identity and sexual orientation. The conservatives say this would undo other administration policies. The letter argues that USMCA contradicts other administration work on sexual orientation and gender identity, and would also make it impossible to end a pair of executive actions from the Obama administration forbidding workplace discrimination. It accuses the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative of working against administration policies.

Don't let anybody tell you that winning the House meant nothing. If we hadn't, this attitude would be the majority.

oh thank you canada for making this possible.

Blows my fucking mind whenever someone thinks that arguing against protecting certain groups of people is a good idea And goes as far as to make a formal written protest Like what the fuck

Holy fuck Canada is my hero, thank you so much

So Trump, despite his own incompetence at diplomacy, basically gets handed a "win" on replacing NAFTA (with something basically indistinguishable)... and it might get scrapped because Republicans are too full of hate. The GOP is unfit to lead itself, let alone the country. I sincerely hope the fallout from the SC investigation destroys the party as it currently exists.

yeah but its "Against their religious right"

the government of canada is doing more to protect me, a united states citizen who has never left the country, than the actual united states government is

This is disgusting and ridiculous. It reminds me of how right-wing social policy influenced Brexit even though it'll severely damage the economy, as the Republicans here are essentially saying that the benefit of a trade deal is not worth being able to treat LGBT people like shit.

It baffles me how there are still people who implore that we "listen to both sides" when the GOP are literally shooting themselves in the foot by forsaking an actual deal and actual policy because they can't oppress people with it. They do this all the time, too. I can't think of any policy of theirs from the last 15 years that isn't based around oppressing someone or giving a break to their lobbyist owners. I sincerely hope that they are condemned internationally someday.

On February 27, 1860, New York party leaders invited Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union to a group of powerful Republicans. Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers had little use for popular sovereignty and had repeatedly sought to restrict slavery. Lincoln insisted the moral foundation of the Republicans required opposition to slavery, and rejected any "groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong".

Bringing up Lincoln in the context of the modern GOP is entirely disingenuous since they have no relation to him outside of the name "Republican" It's only really relevant when actual MAGA gibbons bring up "PARTY OF LINCOLN", so that they can be called out for the party going against the ideals that Lincoln instilled into it.

I don't think the point was Lincoln being republican.

I was showing how Lincoln rejected compromise on slavery.

“A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy,” reads the letter, which carries the names of 40 lawmakers and was sent Friday. “It is especially inappropriate and insulting to our sovereignty to needlessly submit to social policies which the United States Congress has so far explicitly refused to accept.” Going after the 'social policies' angle seems kinda sinister to me. This is far more of a legal issue than it is a social issue and I think it's entirely fair for worker protections to be part of a trade agreement USMCA’s Chapter 23 on labor requires countries to implement policies that protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. Another provision in the same chapter requires countries to promote workplace equality with respect to gender identity and sexual orientation. The conservatives say this would undo other administration policies. The letter argues that USMCA contradicts other administration work on sexual orientation and gender identity, and would also make it impossible to end a pair of executive actions from the Obama administration forbidding workplace discrimination. I think the writing is pretty clearly on the wall. The Party opposes legal protections for LGBT individuals. The Party opposes my basic fucking civil rights http://puu.sh/C3qkF/0be9f7b963.jpg This strikes me as just waffling. It's not about the legal issues. It's not about contradictory language. It's about The Party not wanting LGBT individuals, United States citizens, to have civil rights and being mad that other people do, and are willing to go as far as make these basic legal protections the cost of doing business with them

Go right ahead, Republicans in Congress, reject a trade deal with your single largest trading partner on the planet because you're being forced to treat those icky queers the the same minimum legal standards as you get to enjoy. Crash your own fucking economy and put tens of thousands if not millions of people out of work just so employers can discriminate against trans workers who the bigoted business owners hired in the first place. Undermining your own income and threatening your job security to pwn however many gays still have jobs after the economy contracts by 25%

"We can't treat the gays like human beings! Our Merciful, loving, all-knowing Lord and Saviour hates that!"

Oh, and I can't wait for Trump to get mad and try and salvage his ever-so-important win by trying to convince Republicans to allow equal rights for LGBT to happen just so he can say he accomplished something. It's going to be great to watch Trump desperately try and keep his own prejudices from flowing out while he tries to sell the Republican Party and his own voters on LGBT rights. He needs this trade agreement to be a win; his presidential legacy is shaping up to be a whole lot of nothing but a ballooning national deficit and setting fire to decades of international diplomacy, and he's desperate for something to put up on the scoreboard. Especially after Republicans got assrammed in the midterms and everyone knows it.

If anything comes out of this and the treaty gets delayed, it'll go into Mexico's new left-wing administration, so congrats Republicans, you're playing yourselves.

"Religious rights" are just a cover for the real evangelical agenda, which is gradual transformation of our country into a theocratic state. The reason they can not allow gay people their mere existence is because they believe that their mere existence is an affront to their petulant god, who they believe will punish the entire nation if we don't rid our country of the filthy queers. Remember, the OT is filled with tales where yahweh smites entire swathes of people because a single person sinned. This is the mindset the majority of people who base their faith in a literal interpretation of the bible operate with - especially the ones pushing for their repugnant views to be enshrined in national law itself.

they're more the party of Andrew Johnson today.

Wouldn't Lincoln today fit more into Democrat views? I mean let's not forget that the confederate states are now majority republican, right.