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The United States Secret Service plans to send employees to the “2024 Out & Equal Workplace Summit” in Orlando, October 7-10.
According to Real Clear Politics reporter Susan Crabtree, who broke the story and posted it on X, the Secret Service’s Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) sent out a call for nominees to attend “an all-expense paid trip” to the Summit, “which includes leadership plenary sessions, a ‘Night Out’ at Disney Studios, and a gala event the final night.”
Fox News reported that the Secret Service clarified that it was only sending “administrative staff” responsible for “federal emphasis programs”:
Due to its current operational tempo, the U.S. Secret Service is limiting participation in conferences to only those personnel who have no impact on current protective operations.”
Secret Service ripped for plan to send agents to Disney World LGBTQ summit amid failures protecting Trump https://t.co/V8X0QjiWmZ
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 27, 2024
The group sponsoring the event, Out & Equal, bills itself as “the premier nonprofit organization working exclusively on LGBTQ+ workplace equity, inclusion, and belonging.” The organization explains its work:
We partner with Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and organizations across industries and diverse missions to provide LGBTQ+ executive leadership development, comprehensive D&I [Diversity and Inclusion] training and consultation, and professional networking opportunities that build inclusive and welcoming work environments.
The organization boasts more than 300 partner organizations, including more than 100 Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies and 18 US government partners – your tax dollars at work.
Attendees have the opportunity to attend different conference tracks, including “Shattering the Lavender Ceiling: Trans and Nonbinary Leadership Development” and “Cultivating Your Personal Queer Power for Change.”
Each year, individuals and companies with “organizational initiatives” and “employee resource groups” (ERG) are nominated for “Outie Awards.” And Out & Equal hosts a variety of “Community Engagement Groups,” including groups for LGBTQ+ folks in faith and in the federal government, and groups for those identifying as asexual, aromantic, “nonbinary,” transgender, non-monogamous, and polyamorous.
Out & Equal explains why the summit is necessary:
We are in a moment when the voices and actions of a few are attempting to dim the light and progress of an entire movement. And while it may seem overwhelming, we must remember our potential, our strength, and our value. In times of adversity, doubt, and challenge, Queer joy and resilience will always outshine and persevere.
Indeed.
The Out & Equal junket comes at a time where the Secret Service is already under fire for its handling of two assassination attempts on presidential candidate Donald Trump, as well as for its focus on “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA).”
Shortly after the first assassination attempt, the New York Post reported on the “increasingly woke turn” of the Secret Service and its former director, Kimberly Cheatle, reporting that “she set a target of 30% of recruits being female by 2030.”
The Post added other examples of the agencies DEIA agenda, including:
- Hosting a seminar on the “respectful use of pronouns” during the agency’s annual “Unity Day,” where diversity is celebrated.
- Having a recruiting brochure that boasts the agency is “striving to be the gold standard” of DEIA.
- Setting up agency booths at Pride events across the country to recruit.
The agency has been criticized for focusing on quotas and ideology, rather than hiring and training the best candidates. Now, the Independent Women’s Forum is investigating and plans to sue the Secret Service “for what it alleges is an ‘arbitrary’ diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiative that harms female employees,” Fox News reported.
May Mailman, director of the group’s Independent Women’s Law Center, told Fox News it’s illegal and discriminatory to hire on the basis of sex; it’s dangerous, because the focus is not on hiring the best qualified candidates; and all this “is particularly harmful to women,” because of the way they receive blame for agency errors.
Related articles and resources:
Activist Investors Push Back on Woke Corporate Interests
Go ‘Woke’ Go Broke: Disney Stock Falls 10% After Company Reports Earnings Loss
Three Cheers for Harley-Davidson Dismounting From Corporate Wokeness
Three Cheers for Tractor Supply Unhitching from Corporate Wokeness
Image from Out and Equal
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