A Bill To End Job Discrimination Against LGBT
U.S. Representative Barney Frank is mostly thought of these days as the voice of financial reform in the House of Representatives. Yet, last week, he offered an important bill that has little to do with Wall Street or home mortgages.
H.R.3017 would prohibit employment discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. A boss could still fire a gay person for being incompetent, but could not fire a gay person just for being gay.
The number of cosponsorships for the legislation is both encouraging and discouraging, depending on how you look at it. The legislation is not a fringe issue in the House – far from it, with 126 cosponsors. Yet, the sad fact is that a huge number of Democrats in Congress are not supporting the bill with their cosponsorships. The Democratic Party is better than the Republican Party when it comes to protecting people’s jobs from bigoted bosses, but the Democratic Party still contains a large number of politicians who are willing to accept discrimination, so long as it’s against a minority group that cannot affect their re-election.
