Introduction
Various leaders have different leadership styles and different views regarding different issues within a nation not only since they are distinct individuals but also because of the different policies of the parties that they subscribe to. While some individuals might perceive Bush’s presidency as having been unsuccessful others are of the opinion that he did manage to achieve most of his political objectives in Congress and the nation and thus to a greater extent he managed to protect civil rights, abolish work place discrimination among other issues. At the same time, other observers perceive Obama’s administration as being successful so far with success concerning issues such as civil rights protection and most importantly anti discrimination enhancement.
Discussion
Dealing with civil rights and employment discrimination: George Bush and Obama
Civil rights are those enforceable privileges and rights that if interfered or tampered with can lead to the injury of others. Essentially discrimination usually results when an individual’s civil rights have been interfered with or denied as a result of their membership to a particular class or group. Bush always sort to defend Americans civil rights. For instance, Bush promised to end racial profiling and generally, discrimination, harassment or singling out of individuals based on their race at work. He severally condemned this kind of racial profiling stating that it was outrightly wrong and encouraged the populace to do everything possible to bring it to abolish it, threatening that any individuals or corporates that perpetrated racism would face federal consequences.
In 2006 in a bid to end employment discrimination Bush signed into law the Pension Protection Act which essentially gave all employees greater control concerning how their accounts were being invested by employers and more disclosure regarding performance of their individual pensions.
In addition Bush passed the Anti Discrimination Bill which essentially protected employees from losing their health insurance, jobs or being denied promotions when genetic testing revealed their susceptibility to diseases that were costly for instance cancer, Parkinson disease, heart disease among others. The Act famously known as Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act also intended to ensure that DNA testing advances were not misused and would not be used against employees who had been subjected to them and thus put to an end genetic discrimination. The signing of the legislation showed tremendous victory for Americans that had been born without perfect genes and everyone else since every individual usually has at least six gene mutations that put them at the risk of disease.
Bush furthermore supported constitution amendments on Defense of Marriage Act to support the marriage institution. This was since the Act was to retain definition that marriage was that between a woman and man reinforcing Bush’s view that he did disagree with gay marriages and in fact preferred that they face a constitutional ban. Nonetheless as much as Bush was not for gay marriages he called the society to be tolerant of gays letting them enjoy all the rights enjoyed by other citizens anywhere including the workplace or during employment.
Bush was also noted for issuing threats to veto an employment discrimination bill, the Lilly Ledbetter. This view saw Bush fall victim to criticism and ruinous claims that he was a corporate puppet and was mainly focused on pleasing corporate shareholders rather than stakeholders such as the employees. In defense of his threats, Bush claimed that he would veto the Lilly Ledbetter since he believed that it would make it easy for employees that claimed to have been discriminated to take to court their employers on the basis of sometimes unfair claims of unequal pay. The argument was that the bill had many loopholes and employees would take advantage of the situation and for instance utilize the opportunity to stay silent when they suspected employment discrimination and sue corporates many years later in order to make it harder and more expensive for those corporates to defend themselves against old allegations.
Bush however voiced opinion that employees cannot and should not be discriminated based on their religion. In this regard Bush sponsored the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act that aimed to showcase his support and encourage religious liberty even in while individuals were employed. He also promised to end employment discrimination based on gender.
On the other hand, Obama is also an advocate of civil rights and employment discrimination protection laws. President Obama has voiced his thoughts stating that civil rights protection should be at the heart and mind of every leader in the nation. In fact, Obama has spent most time in his career life fighting to mainly strengthen civil rights. He has thus shown recognition and appreciation that America can only be able to grow stronger if all the citizens are given access to equal opportunities and allowed to non discriminatorily participate in the development of the economy.
The first bill that Obama signed is referred to as the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. The Act is meant to ensure the strengthening of anti-discrimination laws and most importantly restore or rather ensure that all American employees receive pay and benefits for equal work without discrimination on basis of gender, race or physical disability. Obama has also showed support for the Employment Non Discrimination Act the bill Bush threatened to veto further stating that as a matter of fact anti discrimination employment laws needed to be expanded to incorporate gender and sexual orientation identity. The bill is now transgender inclusive and is expected to protect individuals against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. In fact, one of Obama’s campaign promises was that he would pass the Act if he were elected even with Congress strong opposition to the bill.
Essentially, unlike Bush, Obama has indicated his support for Lesbian, bisexual, transgender and gay rights, and civil unions, strongly opposing a constitutional ban of the same sex marriages as had been supported by Bush and calling for their nondiscrimination during employment. Obama believes that it is imperative to ensure the adoption of individuals and all couples rights in the constitution and the workplace irrespective of their sexual orientation.
Recently Obama signed the Hate Crimes bill to law, which is meant to intentionally strengthen protection of individuals against crimes that are based on skin color, sexual orientation, national origin or religion at the workplace. This legislation had been under Congress consideration for many years and has now been included in the defense spending bill to purposely stop Republicans from blocking it. To further protect civil rights Obama is also leading civil justice reforms in order to ensure a more equitable and fair criminal justice system that ensures law enforcement agencies do not at any time support racial profiling. The effects of these actions are expected to trickle down to the workplace.
Obama in addition promises to pass legislations that will not only improve ex offender mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment, but to also ensure their greater job retention and employment in a bid to stop their employment discrimination.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Obama generally promises to make further alterations to Bush administration policies in order to make sure that employment discrimination is completely abolished. He is actually expected to sign more legislations and laws that will ensure protection of civil rights and abolishment of work place discrimination. So far, it can be said that both leaders Obama and Bush have been passionate about employment non-discrimination and generally ensuring the protection of Americans civil rights. Bush has already done a lot in this regard but everyone is still watching Obama to see the steps he is going to make to further his political objectives that enhance Americans rights protection and that end discrimination.
