Jade Fugate

English Comp II

22 November, 2019

The Fight for Equality is Not Over

The civil rights act of 1964 is one of the landmark achievements to come out of the civil

rights movement. The act ended segregation in public spaces and banned employment

discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, it is being

debated on whether sex includes sexual orientation. There are currently 30 states in America that

do not include sexual orientation in the civil rights act, and therefore have no legal protection

banning discrimination or harassment against LGBT members in the workplace. Protection laws

do not cover other major aspects of life including services, housing, healthcare, and military

employment. But why in 2019 are there still no laws banning discrimination against LGBT

members? The main reason is freedom of religion. Legislators are scared to place laws banning

discrimination as they feel it could infringe on peoples’ freedom of religion.

America has been one of the most progressive countries in the world. Since its birth it has

made possible woman’s suffrage, desegregation, and same-sex marriage. However, this change

has come far from easy. There have been civil wars, riots, protests, and many court cases in the

name of reform and equality. In 1969, America performed police raids on gay communities in

efforts to stop what was called a disease. This only ended after a riot at the Stonewall inn, now

known as the Stonewall riot. In the 1980s, there was a massive outbreak of AIDS in the US.

Many turned to the gay community to shed blame, and caused many homosexuals to be denied

treatment. Since the first case, “more than 700,000 people have died “(KFF.org). Also, during
this time, the military gave any openly gay servicemen a “blue discharge”. This discharge was

neither honorable nor dishonorable, but carried a stigma that the receiver had to carry with them

for the rest of their lives as a citizen. “47,000 soldiers got blue discharges from the

Army. African Americans like Mr. Henry got about 10,000 of them—22.2%, even though they

made up only about 6.5% of the Army. Gays and lesbians also got a disproportionate share too:

about 5,000” (Legal aid). Until 2015, it was illegal for same-sex couples to get married, as

marriage was defined as being strictly between a man and woman. Today, there are many other

issues that need to be addressed for LGBT members to have full equality, something the

community has been striving for since Stonewall.

The first issue is the most prominent one: employment discrimination. Today, there are

only 20 states that have laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
(map of the country showing which states have protection laws. Source:

freedomforallamericans.org) That means over half of the country finds it legal for employers to

deny jobs to LGBT members, or to fire existing workers. 28 states have no explicit laws against

job discrimination, while the other two have limited. Wisconsin “protects people from

discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing and public

accommodations – but there are no explicit protections from discrimination on the basis of

gender identity” and “state law in Utah protects people from discrimination on the basis of

sexual orientation and gender identity in employment and housing, the state has no public

accommodations statues” (LGBTQ Americans). Some may think that just because there are no

laws in place does not mean companies will actually fire workers just for being gay, lesbian, bi,

or transgendered. This is not the case however. Since 2012, popular fast food chain Chick-fil-A

has gotten backlash for being a homophobic business. The company has given percentages of

their profits to anti-LGBT groups, and tells employees to remain neutral towards any slurs

thrown their way, rather than try to step in an address the issue. In an interview done by the

Huffington post, many Chick-fil-A workers from around the country are hesitant to speak to the

press and admit to being openly gay, as they fear the company will fire them. “one gay employee

who works at Chick-fil-A headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., and asked to remain anonymous for fear

of losing his job” (Shapiro). Another controversial company is Hobby Lobby. They too donate

some of their earnings to hate groups against the LGBT community. The company is a highly

religious business who finds things like birth control and LGBT people wrong. When Obama

was still in office, the company along with religious leaders argued that allowing LGBT workers

into their stores is a violation of their religious freedom. “These faith leaders seek the right to

discriminate against LGBT workers on public projects funded with public tax dollars. They are
taking Hobby Lobby as a green light to press for an exemption from the executive order although

the legal issues are entirely separate” (Pizer). There are many other examples of small religious

shops and businesses denying LGBT workers to be open and free, or from working for their

companies altogether.

Another huge issue is being denied service from religious businesses. It is not enough for

religious companies to ban LGBT members working for them, but they do not even want their

business. There have been multiple court cases that deal with discrimination based on denial of

services. One of which is Masterpiece cakeshop v Colorado civil rights commission. In short, the

cakeshop denied service to a young gay couple trying to buy a wedding cake. The shop was run

by a religious owner, who argued that they held the right to deny service to anyone, and to force

them to bake a cake for a gay wedding steps on their religious freedom. The court ruled in favor

of the bakery. “The court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed hostility

toward the baker based on his religious beliefs. The ruling is a win for baker Jack Phillips, who

cited his beliefs as a Christian, but leaves unsettled broader constitutional questions on religious

liberty” (Vogue). This is just one of many similar cases, where religious business owners feel

that serving any LGBT member would be going against their religion, therefore if the

government forces that service to be done, it would violate the first amendment. This issue

carries over into housing, where landlords of faith could deny LGBT members from moving into

their property. The same 30 states that have no legal protection against worker discrimination,

also have no legal protection against housing discrimination.

But maybe the government does not want to deal with a touchy subject. The United

States is laissez faire after all. It makes sense that the supreme court would be hesitant on heavily

regulating who a business owner can fire, or deny service to. However, the government has done
it before. Businesses cannot fire a person based on race, age, sex, color, or national origin, and

has not been able to since the civil rights act of 1964. This goes along with who a business can

deny service to, and who can move into certain properties. The issue is that sexual orientation is

not covered in the sex part of the act, as many people had originally thought. Today this is being

debated, but with the Trump administration being conservative and often controversial, it does

not seem like these laws will change anytime soon.

Luckily healthcare is accessible to everyone in the United States. Except, it might not be.

The Trump administration along with the department of Health and Human services is adding a

new reform that could allow healthcare workers to deny treatment to anyone based on their

beliefs. This could affect large groups of people, including African Americans, Latinos, women,

and the LGBT community. “The rule could allow virtually any individual or entity involved in a

patient’s care — from a hospital’s board of directors to the receptionist that schedules procedures

— to put personal beliefs ahead of a patient’s health. This regulation will undoubtedly empower

health care providers to deny necessary care to LGBTQ people and women” (Clymer). The

decision has not been decided yet, but again with the Trump administration deciding, the

outcome does not look good. With this law in place, LGBT patients could once again be denied

lifesaving treatment against an array of medical issues. For example, transgendered patients

could be denied hormones or sex reassignment surgeries, forcing them to deal with body

dysmorphia (a mental health disorder in which a person cannot stop thinking about one or more

perceived defects or flaws in their appearance) for the rest of their lives.

One protection that has remained intact is military duty. LGBT members have been able to

serve proudly in the military for years now with out any issues. The blue discharge mentioned

earlier, and was in use during the 50s and 60s has long since been discontinued. The famous “don’t
ask don’t tell” policy from the military has been discontinued since September of 2011. “The

discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban on gay and lesbian service members is officially in the

dustbin of history. For 17 years, the law prohibited qualified gay and lesbian Americans from

serving in the armed forces and sent a message that discrimination was acceptable” (Human Rights

Campaign). Recently however, transgendered servicemen were under attack. Again, by the Trump

administration, transgendered citizens were not allowed to serve in the armed forces. Even though

many had openly and proudly served since 2016, Trump placed a ban, refusing trans servicemen

and women from continuing to serve. Since then, new legislation has taken the ban away.

“Bipartisan legislation (S. 373 / H.R. 1032) to end the transgender military ban was introduced in

February 2019 by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Jack Reed

(DRI) in the Senate and by Representatives Jackie Speier (D-CA), Joe Kennedy (D-MA), John

Katko (R-NY), Susan Davis (D-CA) and Anthony Brown (D-MD) in the House” (Human Rights

Campaign). Gays in the military has been an issue since the beginning of Americas militia. To

think it would go away easily and for the rest of time would be foolish, as the Trump administration

has proved.

As stated earlier, the government is scared to infringe on peoples’ religious freedoms.

Legislators fear of causing more issue than they would fix by forcing businesses to hire, serve,

treat, and accommodate to people they find morally wrong or sinful. Besides, there are more

Christians in America than LGBT members. “4.5 percent of American adults identify as lesbian,

gay, bisexual or transgender, according to a new Gallup estimate. The percentage, which works

out to more than 11 million U.S. adults, is up from 4.1 percent in 2016 and 3.5 percent in 2012,

the year Gallup first started tracking LGBT identification” (Fitzsimons). While this number is

record high, and continues to grow, it is nowhere close to the number of Christians currently living
in America. “In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of

American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion” (Pew

Research Center). That is well above the 4.5% of adults who identify as LGBT. And while some

Christians are LGBT or feel the community has done nothing wrong, and supports them, almost

half still do not. According to the Pew Research center “a majority of U.S. Christians (54%) now

say that homosexuality should be accepted, rather than discouraged, by society. While this is still

considerably lower than the shares of religiously unaffiliated people (83%) and members of non-

Christian faiths (76%) who say the same” (Murphy). That means if the government steps in to try

and combat the discrimination facing the LGBT community, it would affect almost 62,339,333

Americans who feel their rights would be violated against. That is almost 6 times the number of

LGBT members today. To attempt to combat all issues facing the community today would take

years, possibly decades since there are that many more affected Americans. It simply is not

feasible.

The problem with this logic however, is that it can be done. During the civil rights

movement, many thought the idea of desegregation would go against the very fabric that held this

country together. To let blacks and white intermingle was simply unheard of, and wrong. The same

can be said about LGBT members and Christians. While a little less than half of Christians find

the community wrong, this does not mean the rest of the country has to deal with the consequences.

Yes, it is true that more than 60 million Americans find the community wrong, and do not want to

be forced to accept or accommodate to them. However, there are still over 300 million people who

are either neutral or in support of the LGBT community. Not to mention, there have been huge

reforms in favor of the community before. The police raids ended during Stonewall, the AIDS

epidemic died down, and homosexuals were once again treated, blue discharges along with the
DADT policy ended, and the most recent accomplishment, same-sex marriage was legalized.

These changes did not happen overnight, but they still were made possible. If same-sex marriage

has yet to infringe on peoples’ religious freedoms, who is to say protecting them from

discrimination in the workplace will? Or changing policies to ban businesses from denying service

based solely on one’s sexual preference? The answer is it would not. Freedom of religion as

defined by the constitution states one can practice any religion, while there also not being any set

national religion. Meaning the country cannot accommodate to one religion more than any other.

It is unconstitutional for legislators to continue to lean more in favor of Christians than the majority

of citizens, especially when it denies a large group protection from systematic discrimination. Of

course, states have authority over things like business rights and housing accommodations. But

this too should not rule in favor of people of faith. The separation of church and state has always

been a huge part of the constitution, as the founding fathers made it clear they did not want any

more religious persecution. For a state to continue to deny rights to the LGBT community based

on the beliefs of Christians would be to force those beliefs onto the LGBT community. That

pressure to follow a religions rules goes against the constitution, and must change.

In conclusion, the LGBT community has faced discrimination for a very long time, and in

several aspects of daily life. Many could not serve in the military, marry who they loved, get treated

for life threatening diseases, or simply live life day to day without police interferent. These have

all since changed thanks to the efforts of the community and allies. There are still many changes

to be made though. These include employment and housing protections, bans on business

discrimination and being denied service based on sexual preference, and medical treatment. While

the national and state governments may fear placing new reforms in due to religious freedoms

being stepped on, they can still change. For the nation to favor a particular set of beliefs of one
religion would go against the constitution, which states no religion to be set in America. The

separation of church and state has also been made clear in the constitution, meaning state laws

should also change. Change has not come easy, but it has come nonetheless. Today, it could not

be needed more.
 Works Cited

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www.hrc.org/resources/the-repeal-of-dont-ask-dont-tell.

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