Study Finds Employers Are Less Likely To Interview LGBT Women | ThinkProgress

It would be interesting too see the impact of such a study in small towns were everyone assumes they know your personal life.   Not to knock the study but this is telling me something I already know, although it does put numbers to a face, so to speak.

A new study finds that similarly qualified queer women receive significantly fewer callbacks than their straight peers when applying for jobs.

Emma Mishel, a doctoral student in the sociology program at New York University, conducted the study by generating a pair of test résumés, which she submitted to more than 800 administrative, clerical, and secretarial job openings in New York City, Washington, D.C., Tennessee, and Virginia. The résumés were similarly qualified, and for each application, she would flip a coin to randomize whether the Cornell University grad or the Columbia University grad had experience as a leader in her school’s LGBT student organization or just a general progressive organization.

Because the indicator was an LGBT organization, Mishel refers to “queer women” throughout the study, because the applicants might have been perceived as any variation of LGBT identity. In a footnote, she explains that “queer” has become “an umbrella term for anyone identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.”

The study found that the applicant who did not have an LGBT indicator was 29 percent more likely to be contacted for a interview than the applicant who did,,,

By applying to jobs in different locations, Mishel hoped to assess what impact LGBT employment protections may have played in the results. Interestingly, though callback rates were lower in general for Tennessee and Virginia (perhaps because the applicant’s home address was in New York), rates of discrimination did not actually vary across the locations. Thus, the study suggests that having protections does not directly lower the amount of discrimination that takes place.

Study Finds Employers Are Less Likely To Interview LGBT Women | ThinkProgress

Anti-gay harassment: Missouri man cannot sue for sexual orientation discrimination.

For those that say this does not happen, I have two words for you - Fuck You!

James Pittman faced discrimination because he was gay—that, nobody denies. As an employee at Cook Paper Recycling Corp. in Missouri, Pittman was subject to vile homophobic harassment: Employees called him a “cocksucker,” asked whether he had AIDS, mocked him for being gay and having a boyfriend, and ridiculed him when they broke up. Then Cook Paper fired him.

Pittman sued, alleging he was subject to illegal workplace discrimination. The court promptly dismissed his suit, ruling that Pittman’s harassment was perfectly legal. Neither Missouri nor federal law explicitly bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the court reasoned, so Cook Paper’s employees were free to torment, mock, and fire Pittman for being gay. On Tuesday, the Western District Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

And as Stern notes, it will continue to happen

Twenty-eight states offer no explicit protection against sexual-orientation discrimination in the workplace, and congressional Republicans are currently blocking a vote on a federal law to ban anti-LGBTQ discrimination nationwide. Until that law passes—or until the Supreme Court adopts the EEOC’s interpretation of sex discrimination—people like James Pittman will continued to be harassed, humiliated, and fired for no reason other than their orientation. That strikes me as a profoundly distressing and unjust status quo. But it is a status quo that conservative politicians appear eager to maintain.

Anti-gay harassment: Missouri man cannot sue for sexual orientation discrimination.

Transgender Woman Sues Walmart, Manager She Says Harassed And Then Fired Her | ThinkProgress

Walmart and one of its managers in a New Jersey store have been hit with a lawsuit alleging that a transgender employee was harassed and then fired over her gender identity.

Samantha Azzarano began working at Walmart store in Deptford, New Jersey as a service associate in September of 2012. In January of the next year, she informed a manager that she is transgender. Later that year, she began outwardly expressing her gender identity and had her name badge changed to Samantha. The lawsuit says that there were no problems with her coworkers or performance.

That is, until another manager, Sheena Wyckoff, joined Azzarano’s team in January of 2014. “That’s when the trouble began,” Azzarano’s lawyer, Kevin M. Costello, told ThinkProgress.
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She’s right that she should be protected from workplace discrimination as a transgender woman. Thanks to a provision in New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination that stipulates protections based on gender identity and expression, hers is one of just 19 states and Washington D.C. where transgender people are explicitly covered by anti-discrimination laws. Federal law doesn’t enumerate protections for gender identity in the workplace, although the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ruled that it violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bans sex-based discrimination.

Transgender Woman Sues Walmart, Manager She Says Harassed And Then Fired Her | ThinkProgress

UPDATE::Catholic teacher backs gay son, quits to protest contract

The "first" casualty of the Catholic teachers-as-ministers clause:

Veteran Catholic teacher Molly Shumate stared at the Cincinnati Archdiocese contract for next school year and thought of her son.

She remembered when a nervous Zachery Shumate, a teenager at the time, approached her and revealed his homosexuality.

His revelation prompted the first-grade teacher to give him a hug, telling her boy she would always love and support him.

So when the new teachers' contract – strictly forbidding public support of homosexuality – was handed to her earlier this year, she was torn.

The employment contract – exclusively obtained and reported by The Enquirer in March – continues to divide huge sections of the region's Catholics. The "morality" clauses – though not unique among Catholic schools nationwide – were a first for the 19-county Archdiocese school system.

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She is the first Archdiocese teacher to make a public stand but those opposing the contract predict more will step forward once the school year ends later this month.

"For me to sign this (contract), I feel like I would be telling my son I've changed my mind, that I don't support him as I did. And I won't do that," she said.

Archdiocese officials remain steadfast in their support of the new contract.

Moreover, they contend some of the protests, which have attracted ancillary campaigns for private teacher employment rights, school unions and critics of the church's policies are based on misunderstandings. Officials say much of the opposition is based on over reactions to the newly detailed personal morality provisions and how, in some circumstances, they may lead to teacher firings.

Catholic teacher backs gay son, quits to protest contract

Contracts that define teachers as ministers raise labor questions | National Catholic Reporter

Just what does a teacher do at school? And just what can a teacher do at home?

Catholic educators in dioceses across the country are facing those fundamental questions as they decide this spring whether to sign contracts pledging to work for the 2014-15 academic year.

Seeking to define the role of Catholic education as more identifiably Catholic, several dioceses this year are specifying in their teachers' contracts more clearly -- sometimes with lists of dos and don'ts -- how their teachers are to act in their personal lives.

Some are even redefining teachers not as educators but as ministers.

Legal experts and union organizers say it's a mix that could have sharp implications on teachers' ability to bring civil suits when they believe their employers treat them inappropriately -- and could even prevent them from forming unions to bargain for better wages or conditions.

One scholar who specializes in the intersection of law and religion says the changes are effectively an end-run around legislation protecting employees from discrimination in the workplace.

"It's about churches trying to do everything they can to avoid the anti-discrimination laws, because they don't want to be held to gender equality, sexual orientation equality, racial equality or equal pay," said Leslie Griffin, the William S. Boyd Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

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The shift in language follows a January 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established a "ministerial exception" for religious employers from federal anti-discrimination and workplace labor laws. The court ruled those laws do not necessarily apply to people whom religious groups deem ministers.

Contracts that define teachers as ministers raise labor questions | National Catholic Reporter