The civil rights movement in the United States today has an LGBTQ agenda, and it is gaining momentum. On May 9, President Obama declared his support of same-sex marriage and following suit, the NAACP passed a resolution endorsing same-sex marriage as a civil right. But with all of this attention on marriage equality, we may be ignoring an even more important right: the right to work.
As a longtime organizer and advocate for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer rights, it concerns me that the main issue in today's news is marriage equality. Our community faces daily civil rights violations not limited to school bullying, hate crimes, homelessness, deportation, unemployment, and employment discrimination. With the consequences of these issues so dire, how did the focus of our civil rights struggle become marriage?
There are many benefits to equal access to marriage. It legitimizes queer love as just as valuable as straight love. It allows same-sex couples to have equal rights as married couples from filing joint taxes to being able visit each other in the hospital. But with marriage usually comes weddings, and with the average price of weddings in 2012 hovering around $26,000, who can afford to get married? The employed.
With a national unemployment rate at 8.2 percent, and LGBTQ people facing additional socioeconomic inequalities due to discrimination in the workplace, doesn't it make sense that employment rights should be the number one issue of the LGBTQ community? Don't we need jobs more than marriage?
Only 12 states and the District of Columbia have laws that specifically ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Another eight states have laws that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, but not gender identity.
Even with these patchwork laws, there are still 30 states where you can get fired for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer.
The LGBTQ community also experiences high rates of discrimination in the workplace. Fifteen to 43 percent of LGBTQ workers have experienced some form of discrimination on the job according to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy Study. That number jumps even higher when looking at the transgender community, where 90 percent has encountered some form of harassment or mistreatment at work.
Last month, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that employment discrimination against a transgender individual is prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (the federal law that prohibits employment discrimination based upon race, religion, sex, color, and national origin). This important civil rights victory, which went into effect May 21, is the result of a discrimination complaint filed by the Transgender Law Center on behalf of Mia Macy, a transgender woman who was denied a job after outing herself as transgender.
Even with the success this week of including transgender workers under Title VII, there is still no federal law that protects people from losing their job based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
On June 12, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will hold a hearing on ENDA -- the Employment Non-Discrimination Act -- a federal bill that prohibits discrimination in the workplace based on a person's sexual orientation and gender identity. It would make it illegal for employers to refuse to hire or fire an employee because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or heterosexual.
Marriage equality is important, but I challenge the LGBTQ community to work together to prioritize legislation that encompasses a wider range of our community. Not everyone wants to get married. But everyone needs a job.
Follow Jessica Arevalo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NewAmericaMedia
School bullying, hate crimes, homelessness, unemployment, and employment discrimination affect all sorts of groups. Black, American Indians, Hispanics, Older People, Women, All Ethnic Groups, the Poor, and of course LGBT are all affected. Only deportation stands out as it only directly affects foreign nationals. Other than adding the LGBT qualification to existing laws to protect citizen rights, which is what the proposed bills do, what else could be offered to make a real difference except marriage? Legislation which would give special protections would end up challenged as discriminatory and rightfully so.
As for discrimination in deportation being based on sexual preference, the marriage thing might help that short of having an "If You're Gay You Stay" rule. As it stands, same-sex marriage is not recognized as a legitimate citizen union qualifying a foreigner to remain.
Marriage Equality can pass the Congress and be signed into law by the President in ONE DAY, if they will just get off their rear ends and do it. The Respect for Marriage Act is introduced in both houses of Congress, already.
The economy is a little more complicated. But there are 364 other days in the year.
We were close to having employment protection, but when the Republicans balked at including transgendered folk, we were told we had to wait for ENDA until it included them. Now, they're protected, we're not, and you are telling us 'Wait on marriage, wait on protecting your families,'.
Or people who have an emotional preference for one gender, but a physical attraction to the other. Or who aren't sure they are more bi than straight.
"Queer" - is iffy. Some people accept it, others do not. It seems to be more popular with the younger urban GLBTQ set, than those with more experience of it as a verbal weapon. I try to avoid it, simply because I can't predict how someone else is going to react.
"Marriage equality is important, but I challenge the LGBTQ community to work together to prioritize legislation that encompasses a wider range of our community. Not everyone wants to get married. But everyone needs a job."
How about you, Jessica, work for what is crucial to you, and challenge yourself not to try to prioritize other people's lives for them.
When you can restore the losses experienced by men and women who have lost everyone when their same-sex partner died and, because they could not marry, they were stripped of everything - don't rebuke our priorities. Some of us actually care about our partners, and want to protect them.
Jobs are an economic function--and their lack is an expression of how poorly prioritized our present government is with social issues--sorry, but Obama sucks. He lied about change, he lied about his priorities, he lies about what he plans to do. I don't usually refer to him by any other name but Bush III. I can't change him or his vacuous government--but I could change my marital status thanks to NY State.
So the approximately 1000$ it cost us to go there by plane, stay in the Sheraton Four Points in Long Island City (fantastic place, highly recommended), eat decent but not 5 star meals was my way of saying thank you to NYC & NYS AND fulfill a life long dream of a legally binding, recognized union with the person I most love.
Sorry if that wasn't communal enough of a goal for you, but it worked for me. And a lot of others want that, and I encourage them to get it. The City Clerk's Office in NYC is a fantastic and cheap place to get married, (no flowers), I'm wearing a $20 ring from their store. And I'm married.
So you find it somewhat ironic that jobs do not seem to be the top priority...I offer that too many of us are comfortably employed, in the closet so far we do not even know we are there..and many just separate their public and private lives at all costs.
When we become a community we will find we have a lot of work to do..and it is indeed far more than marriage equality.. but for those of us who are retired...and in relationships for j30+ years...my priority is being married.
We are 20,000,000+ strong and we are NOT going away, we will NOT be silenced by ignorance and some day we will unite for a common cause.
Your basic scenario is incorrect.
You should be asking this to the anti-gay heterosexuals who STARTED this with their Constitutional bans and ballot measures.
Aren't gay people merely fighting back? Defending ourselves? In whatever attacks are thrown our way?
I think it's the luck of the draw that marriage rights got out in front.
However, if gay people were fighting to be allowed to have the same color trash cans as heterosexuals, there are those in the heterosexual community who would seek Constitutional amendments about THAT, too.
Gay citizens do not yet get to choose our fights.
We can only defend against the attacks on us, our lives, our families and our civil rights by the very people who created every gay person in existence.
There are plenty of companies to work for. There is only one government able to recognize our relationships.