Come on Tim!
Mr Cook using his powers for good.
Tim Cook has demanded Congress pass a bill banning workplace discrimination against gay or transgender people. The Apple CEO used an op-ed in the Washington Post to urge politicians to back the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA). The House of Representatives is expected to take a vote today on whether to enshrine the bill …
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Don't forget religion - I'm not sure about the federal level, but most states certainly prohibit employment or public accommodation discrimination on grounds of religion. This is important, because it means whenever a religious group starts complaining about gays being given 'special rights' or claiming that their own freedoms are being infringed by being forced to 'endorse sin,' you are perfectly justified in accusing them of hypocrisy.
""We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" seems like a nice place to start. I read that in a declaration of independence somewhere."
Yeah, the guy that wrote that (Jefferson) had plenty of time to get the words right, what with all the slaves he owned getting the other work done for him.
all well and good - but won't stop folk claiming their dismissal was because they are a tranny/gay/pregnant/one legged blacked lesbian and not just because they are shit.
I imagine a tranny can be just as shit at their job as a white middle class straight american - and should therefore be just as easy to fire, from an equality viewpoint.
Firstly, wow could you try and be more offensive with your language?
Secondly, of course a transsexual / gay / lesbian / bi-sexual person can be as bad at their job. It's not supposed to be a get out of jail card for being useless. It's about ensuring that they can only be fired for being useless - i.e. the employer has to prove they are useless just as they do for their white middle class straight american employees.
It shouldn't been seen as a 'special right' to be afforded the same protections as the rest of the population!
"I imagine a tranny can be just as shit at their job as a white middle class straight american - and should therefore be just as easy to fire, from an equality viewpoint."
Well, indeed so. She might equally be rather good at it (like me).
It's not that she shouldnt be as easy to fire, but that she should be no more easy to fire..
There - that wasnt difficult, was it?
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The thing to remember is that the United States is a federated patchwork of (semi) independent political units that are allowed to draft their own laws so long as they don't contravene the Federal laws (and, sometimes, if they do; e.g. recreational/medical marijuana laws).
The states that have legalized same-sex marriages are likeliest (haven't checked them all -- don't plan to) to already have anti discrimination laws on the books that include LGBTs, and the ones that don't are likeliest not to. This is the reason for the push for a Federal anti discrimination law -- to sweep the floor, as it were, and ensure that someone that can't be fired for being gay in, say, Massachusetts, can't be fired if their job moves them to Utah.
In the US you can sack people for no reason and no notice in many states, it's called "right to work" (who said Americans don't do irony !)
If the person you are firing is a visible minority there is normally an automatic lawsuit - just from no-fee lawyers. The result is that you never tell anyone the reason they are being fired - because it gives their lawyers ammunition. Which is a shame because quite often it's not their fault, it's just the company's needs change.
This clause just gives the lawyers another class to chase. One side effect is that it would force people to be openly (even flamboyantly) gay in the office in order to show that you knew they were gay when you fired them.