Republican House Speaker John Boehner, a shill for Big Tobacco and the Koch brothers, said on November 4th that he would block passage of the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA), and he has now followed through on his promise. His office announced the reason Monday, by saying that banning bigotry "will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs."
He did not say why he thought that bigotry is good for "jobs." Presumably, he felt that this bigotry is good for protecting jobs for his voters: White Christian heterosexual males. This bigotry means that non-Whites, minorities, and women, can be locked out of those jobs, blocked from even being considered for these positions, regardless of whether the blocked person can perform in it much better than the White Christian Heterosexual Male Republican can.
What is also unexplained is why the victims of Republican bigotry would be "frivolous" if they were to sue an employer for discrimination in hiring or in employment. Maybe Speaker Boehner felt that judges' time is too valuable to be spent on anything but cases in which one corporation is suing another. Maybe he felt that courts should be closed to consumers, workers, and other Democrats.
So, I phoned his office to ask. I was told that the Speaker's position "speaks for itself," and that no further explanation would be available.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.