Self-Defeating Prophecy

Obama signed into law today the Lily Ledbetter Fair Play Act, which among other things:

"...covers pay discrimination based on gender, race, national origin, religion, age and disabilities."

Of course this is a major problem because...

Some Republicans and business leaders have expressed concern the measure could trigger an explosion of lawsuits based on old claims, discourage employers from hiring women and undermine efforts to stem the recession.

So, Republicans argue that a law mandating among other things gender equality is bad and unneccesary in the free market because, and if I'm reading this correctly, there's already so much existing gender discrimination ingrained in the workplace that employers will have no choice but to break the law and discriminate against people based on gender in the future.

What a great bunch of guys, those Republicans.