Gay Rights and Job Discrimination in the Workplace
Gay Rights and Job Discrimination in the Workplace
Many people do not know the importance of gay rights, assuming that gays and lesbians are afforded the same basic rights as other citizens. Unfortunately, this is not the case. There are still many states that have neglected to create anti-discrimination laws to protect gays and lesbians. Specifically, there are a large number of U.S. states that go not protect gays and lesbians in the workplace. What that means, is that depending what state you live in, it may be completely legal for your employer to fire you based purely on your sexual preference.
Despite the fact that it is illegal to fire or refuse to hire someone due to gender, age, religion or race, many states do lack law protecting workers from being fired due to their sexual orientation. In fact, in more than half of the states in this country, it is still permissible for an employer to fire one of their employees just on the basis that they discovered that the employee was homosexual.
Many studies have proven that up to 85% of Americans are against job discrimination based on sexual orientation. Furthermore, sixty-one percent are in favor of a federal law being passed that prohibits discrimination against gays in the workplace. And yet, only a few states have passed anti-discrimination laws.
Some of the states who are in the front line of supporting and protecting the gay community in their workplace are: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
For gays and lesbians who don't live and work in these states find that they might face serious consequences if they come out in their workplace. While many corporations and other organizations have come out with their own policies against workplace discrimination, there is no legal action that gays and lesbians can take if they are the victims of discrimination.
What does this mean for gays and lesbians? It means that gays and lesbians ought to deal with the difficult decision of whether or not they can come out to their coworkers. Although this may not seem like such a big challenge, when you take into account that many people spend eight or more hours a day in the office, five days a week, this is a huge amount of time to spend lying to the people around you about who you are. Also, a lot of jobs and careers insist on people to bring their significant others and family members to employer-sponsored events. In these cases, gays and lesbians would be unable to bring their life-partners or adopted children to work-related functions.
Many people think that it is best to wait for a slow change of policy over time, so that the gay rights movement will influence employers and other corporations to create anti-discrimination policies on their own. However, this allows the government to turn a blind eye to what is very obviously a question of basic civil rights. Even if you aren't a gay rights activist or anyone who is politically active, it's important to communicate with your senators and congressmen and ensure that they know that equal rights for gays is an important issue.
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