This subject is relevant to me and to my readers for a few reasons:
1. My blog is kinda sorta related to employment and this is about employment discrimination.
2. I and a significant percentage of my readers (I might even take a poll to prove this) are in support of LGBTQ rights.
3. I can write about whatever the fuck I want to write about.
The thought was sparked by some confusion over the Chick-fil-A incident. The company does not, apparently, discriminate against its employees or its customers based on sexual orientation--the media outrage has been due to the company's monetary and moral support of certain anti-gay organizations. But I had to do some digging around to find that out, because of course in their anger and confusion, people began spewing all kinds of accusations against the company and rumors were spread, etc.
Anyway, it got me thinking about the legality of such things. I'm from Oregon, a very liberal state, and as long as I can remember it's been taken as a known fact that discrimination (for employment, government aid, you name it) based on sex, race, national origin, citizenship status (citizen, resident, temporary resident, anything legal), sexual orientation, gender identity, age within certain limits...all not okay. It didn't even cross my mind that sexual orientation was not a part of the federal constitutional provision against such discrimination. Most of those things are covered by the 5th or 14th amendment, but both sexual orientation and gender identity are not.
Which means that it's up to each individual state.
I searched the internet for one of those handy U.S. maps that breaks it down by state...and to my surprise, I didn't find one. I had to dig through, of all things, a real estate management company's report, to find the information I wanted. I decided that most people aren't going to do that and will give up trying to find that information, and that the more informed we are, the better.
So I made one.
Here it is:
Information Source: Institute of Real Estate Management Legislative Staff report made in July 2007.
| www.irem.org/pdfs/publicpolicy/Anti-discrimination.pdf |
Take it away, Google Images! Seriously, please. That's where people will go to find this chart and I really want them to be able to.
Serious props to Washington, Oregon (Me!), California (My mom!), New Mexico, Colorado (My dad!), Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, New Jersey, DC, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine. And honorable mention to Nevada, Wisconsin (Tyler!), Connecticut, New York (current residence!), and Maryland.
This is serious shit, I know. I'm funny but I also have thoughts, and sometimes those thoughts are about serious things. And sometimes those thoughts are about serious things without even making fun of them.
You guys rock. Thank you for reading. Please pass this information on or share it on your Facebook page or whatever. Steal my chart and pretend it's yours if you'd like. Impress a girl with it.
Jill of all Trades: getting men everywhere laid by LGBTQ-supporters.
Keep rocking y'all!
*
