Judge deems Louisiana LGBT order unconstitutional

A Louisiana judge ruled Wednesday that Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, exceeded his authority by issuing an LGBT workplace executive order.

Edwards said the order, issued in April, would protect state employees from discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. But Louisiana’s Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry challenged him, claiming the order went too far by demanding organizations compromise their beliefs on marriage and sexuality as a condition of winning government contracts.

Judge Todd Hernandez sided with Landry and threw out the order, saying it attempted to create or expand existing state law. Edwards promptly announced he intended to appeal the verdict.

“We respect the trial court’s decision and will abide by it while we vigorously pursue an appeal,” Edwards said following the ruling.

The executive order said no state agencies, departments, or offices shall discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. That includes during the process of hiring, promotion, tenure, recruitment, and compensation. And while the order contained an exemption for religious institutions, there were no protections for anyone else who held Biblical beliefs on marriage and sexuality. Edwards also tucked in language to make restrooms and locker rooms gender-neutral in state buildings.

The court’s ruling is the next stage of a 20-year battle in Louisiana over LGBT issues. So-called antidiscrimination legislation has failed in Louisiana’s state legislature multiple times while Democratic governors issue pro-LGBT orders and Republicans revoke them.

Landry said he challenged Edwards’ actions because they attempted to circumvent the legislative process and advance a progressive ideology.

“After efforts to advance his extreme agenda failed by large bipartisan majorities in the Legislature, John Bel Edwards took it upon himself to replace the people’s will with his own,” Landry said in a statement.

Landry compared Edwards’ order to similar ones from the Obama administration. In 2014, President Barack Obama issued an immigration executive order to shield about 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. But last summer, an evenly split U.S. Supreme Court stayed a lower court decision that blocked it.

Obama has also influenced social policy by executive order. After North Carolina passed HB2, a law that requires people to use the restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificates, the Obama administration made a rule that all public schools must accommodate transgender students or risk losing federal funds. A collections of states sued, and the case is still pending in court.

Edwards’ next step will be to take the case to the Louisiana Court of Appeals, First Circuit, in Baton Rouge. The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT activist group, plans to help Edwards with his appeal.

State laws providing special accommodations for LGBT employees vary across the country. Washington, D.C., and 23 states already have laws on the books that designate sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes. Seven states include state employee provisions for orientation, but not gender identity. Louisiana is one of 20 states that doesn’t have a law for either.