Gay-Rights Job Bill

There’s a large part of me that wonders, how is this even an issue? Right now, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is making its’ way through congress. It will expand current civil rights laws to prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Here I was, thinking this was already included in that part of the employment contract that states ‘we do not discriminate when hiring…’

The importance of this bill is huge for the gay community, though it took reading both articles from USA Today and Wall Street Journal to understand that the homosexual community was even facing this issue.

The USA Today article “17 Years After Defeat, Senate Advances Gay Rights Bill” did a decent job of describing why this was a nail-biting event, but does little to explain some of the quotes utilized. I was left pretty confused by a lot of this article. Starting with the response by the House Speaker and why he doesn’t support the bill. “The Speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small-business jobs," Boehner press secretary Michael Steel said.” What does that even mean? “Frivolous litigation?” How would this cost American jobs, let alone small-business jobs? I’m all for the extreme right wing to have their opinions, but could they, or the press, do something about explaining their stance?

Also, the use of language like an ‘up or down vote’ to get the bill through the House left me clueless. What in the world is an ‘up or down vote?’ “But it could take a discharge petition signed by a majority of House members to get it out of committee.” Um…huh? Call me ignorant, but I have little knowledge of political inner workings, let alone political jargon. You can argue that the average bear reading USA Today may understand this last quote, but then it becomes an issue of expanding readership by appealing to all intelligences.

I only understood by the last few paragraphs of the article the problems that this bill can bring up. Organizations and those religious affiliations might have a hard time abiding these new rules. It’s hard to try and employ someone that your beliefs tell you is immoral, or sinful.

And it isn’t until the last few sentences that we discover that some people have a problem with the wording of the bill. Now, that’s something that can actually be explained. So why don’t they?  

Looking to the Wall Street Journal’s “Gay-Rights Job Bill Clears Key Senate Hurdle,” I feel the clouds part. Here are my answers. Not only does the article pull from statistics by the Human Rights Campaign group, but it discusses the amendments made to adjust for religious organizations. This article also gives information on how many states and companies already have similar bans on discrimination. It even quotes someone on how surprised constituents were to discover that this ban on discrimination wasn’t already in effect.

The only thing I wish that the WSJ article covered, having read the USA Today article first, is the curious quote from the House Speaker. Will someone explain that to me, please???