Monday 16 May 2005
chasing gays away chases lots of talented people
pennlive.com - The Patriot-News: State gays' lack of job safeguards draws fire
pennlive.com - The Patriot-News: State gays' lack of job safeguards draws fire
In Maryland, New Jersey and New York, it's illegal to fire an employee simply for being gay or lesbian.
In Pennsylvania, it's not.
....
More companies and local governments throughout the nation are including workplace protections for gays and lesbians. Some say that Pennsylvania needs to consider such steps in order to attract -- and keep -- talented workers.
"Cities have to be attractive to creative, innovative people, and not just gay and lesbian" workers, said Gary J. Gates, senior research fellow at the Williams Project on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law.
Cities and states can see clear ties between being seen as welcoming to gay residents and a thriving economy, Gates said.
....
"It's not the business climate. ... It's the people climate," said Richard Florida, the Hirst Professor at George Mason University's School of Public Policy.
Florida said a technical worker simply might feel as if he doesn't fit into a community that doesn't welcome gays.
....
"Even if someone is perceived as gay and they're not really gay, they can be fired," said Judy Chambers, co-chairperson of the Capital Region Stonewall Democrats, the Harrisburg branch of a national gay and lesbian group.
I can attest to this... I believe I was once fired from a job, (almost a decade ago perhaps), because the owner believed me to be gay. I got this impression because the day before I was fired he grilled me upon whether or not I thought Rosie O'Donnell was gay. Perhaps he didn't like my answer. Of course I also suspected that my age may have played a factor, almost all the other women who worked there were very young, and he was shocked, in that same conversation, to learn that I was actually several years older than I looked.
And when I told the Unemployment Office worker about my suspicions about being fired for perhaps his ideas about my sexuality, (because I had to petition for unemployment benefits), the Unemployment Office guy said that in Pennsylvania, an employer can fire an employee for any reason.
Which seems to me to make even racial discrimination pretty hard to prove, considering an employer can fire an employee because of the way they looked, so long as they didn't specify the colour of their skin.
I think the bottom line is, people are not going to change their weird little prejudices - whether it be against people with long hair, or people who "seem gay", or a different race...
So I guess this is the only way to reason with people... To appeal to their best interests in that protection for gays means attracting talented workers, gay or straight.
But, I fear, with the conservative "religious" climate rising these days, many clueless people are becoming convinced that they'd be better off: living in a heap of stinking rubbish rather than having a gay garbage collector; suffering with a toothache than going to a gay dentist; or dying of a heart attack than going to a gay surgeon.
Homophobia isn't about rational thought or logic, after all.
I really couldn't care less what my employer or co-workers think of my sexuality, as long as they didn't tell me about it or it didn't interfere with my job. What other people merely think about me is none of my business, after all. And anyway, I don't consider them to be in my dating pool.
Having been a temp for a significant amount of time periods, working at many different workplaces... it's not the only time I've been practically interrogated about my sexuality on a job. One time, at a temp position, about 5 years ago, a young woman who was my co-worker asked me if I had a boyfriend. Innocent enough question, right? When I told her that I did not have a boyfriend... She assumed I'd recently broken up with someone. I said that wasn't the case... (which it wasn't, I hadn't had a steady relationship in 5 years at the time, so I hadn't had any break-ups)... She then asked, "Well, then do you have a girlfriend?"
I was a little put off by the conversation... Mostly because this young woman couldn't seem to fathom anyone being single for any length of time, which is rather disturbing. But I don't consider it insulting for someone to speculate or even assume I'm gay.
But it is a problem if you're unable to stay employed because someone thinks you might be gay, let alone if they know you're gay. And while I'm not particularly "butch", I've known plenty of straight women who were rather more masculine than a lot of the lesbians I've known. The whole thing is therefore really dangerously ridiculous.
(link via keystonepolics.com)
posted by Chloe | Monday 16 May 2005 3:46 PM
|
|
