I don’t know why I didn’t know that, being gay and all.
That really sucks.
This nice young woman just dropped by the house soliciting for HRC. I generally don’t like people coming to my door this way but what can you do? I kinda tried to make her go away but she was pretty feisty. “You know you can be fired for being gay in 33 states.” I was all, “yeah, yeah, yeah you’re preaching to the… what? 33 states? Alright, come in. Let me get my wallet.”
Damn.
Hey straight people, you think you should be able to fire me for being gay?
Well, some states are “at will” employment states and they can fire you for any reason they want I suppose. But society is supposed to consider some reasons to be especially dickish.
No one should be able to fire anyone for anything that isn’t criminal or business-related. Being gay is neither. (Hardcore religious nuts may wish it were otherwise, but they can bite me, too)
Plus, I suspect that the whole story behind the speech you were given isn’t that it’s actually legal to be fired for being gay in 33 states, but rather that there isn’t any legislation in those states that specifically forbids discriminating against it, which is very different, although there should be legislation passed to fold it into existing anti-discrimination laws. (Probably won’t fly in Utah, though…)
Yeah, I’d suspect of bit of playing you in there. ‘At Will’ States largely mean you could be fired for any reason or none. If they want to interpret that as meaning ‘Fired for being Gay’ because anyone can be fired for whatever then I’d say they were stretching things to get some action/money.
I’d love to be proved wrong there. But I’d have to see a statute first.
I suspect that those 33 states include some “employment at will” states where you can fire people without cause, so long as you do not unlawfully discriminate.
In theory, you could also discriminate against heteros.
I don’t see sexual orientation being added to the list of protected classes until the gay marriage thing is resolved. But that may be sooner than you think.
In more than 33 states, you can be fired simply for professing anti-gay beliefs in a public place on your own time (like your lunch hour). This bigot that I know couldn’t believe it either until this cute little girl in a Klansman costume came by asking for donations. Turns out it is true.
I don’t know what sort of a statute you expect to see, here. The claim is that in 33 states, you can be fired for being gay, not you will be fired for being gay. The problem is a lack of a statute. Specifically, one protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in the workplace. How many of these states are “at will” states is irrelevant. Even in “at will” states, you can’t be fired for being black, or Jewish, or female.* The point is that gays do not share similar protections.
It’s also worth noting that “at will” doesn’t mean you can be fired for any reason, it means your employer doesn’t have to give you a reason when they fire you. If they do say why, and you can demonstrate that they’re lying, they’ve opened themselves up to a wrongful dismissal lawsuit. I guy I worked with got a few thousand dollars because one of his previous employers fired him for smoking pot at work. He went out and got himself drug tested, and succesfully sued. If his dumbass supervisor had kept his mouth shut, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything.
That’s true, and it’s why in “at will” states, it’s probably actually very easy to fire someone for reasons that would normally fall into a protected class (like for race or gender, for instance). The employer doesn’t have to give any reason, and it can be very difficult to prove their motivation in court.
Why? Why should a business not be able to end the employment of someone who they think is doing a poor job? No one is entitled to a job.
Anyway, in those same 33 states, you can also be fired for being straight. In all 50 states, you can be fired for having blue hair. Theoretically.
What’s going on here is that sexual orientation is not a protected class in those states (or the Federal level) like gender, race and religion are. It is in my State as it should be.
Discrimination is disgusting but “at-will” laws shouldn’t be eliminated just because they are abused sometimes.