Barack Obama pressed to keep Zanesville promise

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Then-presidential hopeful Barack Obama speaks during his campaign in July 2008 from a podium at Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville. At a news conference Tuesday, members of the U.S. House, the Secular Coalition for America and the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination called on Obama to fulfill the promise he made in Zanesville concerning religious discrimination. / Times Recorder file photo

ZANESVILLE -- President Barack Obama is being called upon to keep a pledge made on the campaign trail in 2008 in Zanesville.

The Secular Coalition for America and the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination, among others, are asking Obama to sign an executive order to end an exemption they say allows religious organizations receiving federal contracts to discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion.

"If you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help, and you can't discriminate against them -- or against the people you hire -- on the basis of religion," Obama said at that time, while campaigning at Eastside Community Ministry.

It only takes the stroke of a pen to keep that commitment, said Sean Faircloth, executive director of the Secular Coalition.

"No congressional action is needed to right this wrong," Faircloth said. "The president simply needs to issue an executive order."

The two organizations, along with congressmen from around the country including Democrats Bobby Scott from Virginia, John Conyers from Michigan, Barney Frank from New York and Melvin Watt from North Carolina, conducted a news conference Tuesday afternoon, pleading with Obama to "keep your promise."

"We don't know why he hasn't acted on it," said Mike Meno, communications manager for Secular Coalition. "He made it three years ago, and we still have nothing."

Shin Inouye, director of specialty media in the White House Office of Communications, responded that the Department of Justice "continues to review this issue on a case-by-case basis."

In a letter signed by 52 various organizations across the country, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and Catholics for Choice, the groups state that despite hearing about the Department of Justice reviewing the issue, they have seen no forward movement and urge Obama to restore key civil rights protection against employment discrimination on the basis of religion.

The letter also reminds Obama of Executive Order 8802, which was the first executive order prohibiting government contractors from engaging in employment discrimination. That executive order was first put in place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1941.

The letter urges Obama to rescind Executive Order 13279, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, which they think allows discrimination to take place. The order addressed equal protection of the laws for faith-based and community organizations.

"The traditional safeguard protecting against discrimination in government-funded jobs is particularly critical in government contracts," the letter states. "The government, in purchasing necessary goods and services for its own use, must not fund discrimination."

The Secular Coalition for America is an organization that serves as the national lobby for atheists, agnostics, humanists and other secular Americans and states it works to protect and strengthen the secular character of our government as the best guarantee of freedom for all.