Protect gay workers, too

In 29 states (including Indiana), it is completely legal to fire someone or deny them employment entirely because they are gay or transgendered.

Your employer could literally say, “You are a great employee, but I am firing you anyway because I don’t like gay people,” and the employee could do absolutely nothing to fight the unfair termination of his or her employment.

There is simply no reason or excuse for the Employee Non-Discrimination Act not to be passed at the national level.

Is a country where it is completely legal for a bigoted boss to blatantly discriminate against an employee based on his or her sexual orientation really a country where you want to live and work? I certainly know how I answer that question, and U.S. employers risk losing talented employees if more people answer how I do.

Congress, on the other hand, is having great difficulty deciding how it should answer that same question. For decades, gay rights advocates have been asking Congress to expand basic anti-discrimination protections for gays and lesbians – and it is something they have consistently failed to do.

It’s already illegal to discriminate in employment based on gender, religion and ethnicity. Apparently gays don’t make the cut. It’s far past the time that this problem get fixed.

While gay rights activists have been making the incredibly reasonable demand to be protected from being fired, the Republican Party has controlled one or both houses of Congress and/or the White House (and we all know how incredibly progressive and gay-friendly Republicans are). Now that Democrats control roughly 60 percent of both houses of Congress and the White House, there is no longer any legitimate excuse for not passing this common-sense legislation.

Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans support these protections, and a large number of local and state initiatives to protect gays from workplace discrimination have passed at the ballot box. Congressional politicians have nothing to fear but the unrestrained bigotry of religious leaders like Pat Robertson.

While our country is caught in the middle of one of the worst unemployment crises in nearly a century, every job lost unnecessarily to bigotry is one job too many. If President Obama and leaders in Congress truly care about decreasing unemployment and keeping their campaign promises to pass ENDA, they should pass ENDA now.

Because it’s projected that Republicans are probably going to gain seats in the 2010 Congressional elections, it is imperative that this bill become law before members of Congress go back to their districts to campaign.

Congress should pass ENDA now.


Email: zammerma@indiana.edu