ABSTRACT
The above excerpt, taken from a statement by the President of the Human Rights Campaign, America’s largest civil rights organization, to the United States House of Representatives, indicates the continued political attention that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employee issues receive. Although about 70% of the American public assumes homosexuals are covered under federal civil rights law, they are not (Mills, 2000). In 1994, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would ban workplace discrimination against employees based on gender and sexual orientation, was introduced to Congress and was defeated. In 1996 ENDA came within one vote of passing the U.S. Senate. Since 1996 including sexual orientation and gender identity as a protected class has come before the Congress numerous times but has continually been defeated. In the fall of 2007, the bill was again before Congress, and Congress heard testimony about the destructive nature of LGBT employee discrimination. Although there is no legislative decision yet, there is strong support for the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender discrimination in ENDA legislation.
