Friday, March 29, 2024

Everyone should be covered by civil rights law

April 11, 2001

About 80 percent of Americans believe people cannot be legally discriminated against based on sexual or affectional orientation in the workplace. Yet, only 12 states and the District of Columbia now prohibit discrimination based on one’s affectional orientation.

That fact means there are 38 states where lesbians, bisexuals and gays can be legally discriminated against, including fired, for who they are. One of those 38 states lacking protection is Michigan.

Fortunately, a bill has been reintroduced into the Michigan House that would protect people from this sort of discrimination; and as Michigan residents, we should voice our support for it.

This House bill would add both the status “sexual orientation” and “disability” to the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, an existing law prohibiting discrimination based on such things as race and religion in employment, housing and public accommodations. Sadly, this is the second time the bill has come before the state Legislature. Last session, the bill died in committee to the everlasting relief of heterosexists everywhere.

The lack of legal protection from discrimination has devastating and dehumanizing effects for lesbian, gay and bi people. Employment discrimination threatens the job security, sense of worth and equality and economic health of lesbians, gays and bisexuals. No good reason exists for allowing employers to treat people differently based upon factors that don’t affect their job performance.

Support for including affectional or sexual orientation in nondiscrimination laws has sounded loudly from many concerned civil rights advocates, both straight and lesbian, bi or gay.

John Sweeney, president of the organized labor group AFL-CIO, stated, “. . . working people are now being denied employment on the basis of something that has no relationship to their ability to perform work. The AFL-CIO strongly believes that discrimination based on sexual orientation is wrong and un-American.”

In addition, black civil rights activist Coretta Scott King commented in regard to discrimination against lesbians, gays and bisexuals, “As my husband, Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Like Martin, I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.”

Needless to say, organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign and many others passionately promote legislation like the civil rights bill recently introduced here.

Resistance to lesbian, bi and gay civil rights still carries much influence in Michigan and the rest of the United States, though. Outrageously conservative heterosexists have put forward the notion that lesbian, bi and gay citizens actually make up some sort of elite, affluent class. They have argued that lesbians, bisexuals, and gays have far higher incomes than straight Americans, so nondiscrimination laws would give “special rights.”

To support that patently false argument, members of the religious extremist movement known as the Christian right have used income surveys from upper-class gay magazines. Taking small, unrepresentative surveys from a few magazines marketed to upper-class white men can obviously not be generalized to an entire population of people of various races, classes and genders. They should probably look up lying in their Bibles - there is a commandment about it.

Even our conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices have used this pathetically supported myth in statements. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas both signed onto a statement by Justice Antonin Scalia arguing that “high disposable income” gives lesbians, bisexuals and gays “disproportionate political power.”

All right, affectional orientation minorities cannot marry. They have to worry about rising rates of hate and bias crimes. They can be kicked out of a restaurant or denied an apartment for their affectional orientations in most states. And, in many states, it is even illegal for them to make love. Yet, they wield “disproportionate political power.” They can be legally fired or denied promotions based on their affectional orientations in most states. But through some mysterious gay occult process, they make thousands more annually. In what acid flashback does that sound logical?

Further, heterosexist public figures have used the widespread delusion that people choose to be lesbian, bi and gay to oppose civil rights protections. Opponents refer to minority affectional orientation as a “lifestyle choice” or “preference.” We need a serious reality check. What is the biggest attraction to choosing to be lesbian, bi or gay? Is it the social stigma, the harassment, the threat of violence or the much-acclaimed “disproportionate political power?”

Regardless, this bill in the Michigan House is essential to protecting lesbians, bisexuals, gays and disabled people from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations.

You can help get it passed by contacting your House representatives and attending a rally organized by members of the Spectrum and Prism lesbian, bi, gay and transgender residence hall caucuses and the Alliance of Lesbian-Bi-Gay and Transgendered Students next Tuesday. Speakers at the rally will include priests, politicians, representatives of national, state, and local civil rights organizations, and victims of discrimination.

The attention of concerned citizens in this effort is invaluable.

Brian Emerson Jones, an interdisciplinary studies in social science sophomore, can be reached at jonesb20@msu.edu.

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