Park Business Law Paper

Equal Rights for All, Except Homosexuals – Outline

a) Introduction to the issue of Gay Rights

b) Introduction to the issue of Sexual Orientation based discrimination in the workplace

c) History

a. Case Study Examples

i. Bibby v. Phila Coca Cola Bottling Company

ii. Dawson v. Bumble & Bumble

iii. Onscale v. Sundower Offshore Services, Inc.

iv. Wrightson v. Pizza Hut of America, Inc.

d) What’s being done right now?

a. Employment Non-Discrimination Act

e) What could be done

a. Opinion

b. Observed effect of banning discrimination of this type

f) Conclusion

Employment discrimination can be defined as “employer behavior that penalizes certain individuals because of personal traits that they cannot control and that bear no relation to effective job performance” (Mallor, Barnes, Bowers, and Langvardt, 2010). Employment discrimination in general has been a fiercely protected aspect of business law. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act provides a wide spectrum of legislation protecting the legal rights of workers based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Sex discrimination specifically covers gender-based discrimination in the workplace, but has no language to protect homosexual or transgendered individuals. The ACLU (2012) finds that “employment discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers is pervasive and harmful. It violates core American values of fairness and equality by discriminating against qualified individuals based on characteristics unrelated to the job”. Banning such discrimination is a recent topic, but allowing it is old history. In 1950, President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the ban of employment of homosexual individuals by the federal government. At the time, being “gay” was widely thought to be something that was a voluntary act of deviance, something that was dirty and disgusting. The act of gay sex itself was illegal and many employers banned homosexual applicants. The lifestyle was...