Sex orientation discrimination heading to Supreme Court

LGBTQ workers employed in New York businesses may be interested to learn that more than 200 large businesses and corporations are calling for the U.S. Supreme Court to ban job discrimination based on potential employee’s sexual orientation or gender identity. It was reported that among the corporations calling for the ban included Amazon, Walt Disney and Microsoft.

In a case that lead to the Supreme Court, a skydiving instructor was fired due to his sexual orientation. According to the report, the job required the former instructor to strap himself tightly to the clients so that they could safely complete tandem jumps from airplanes. The lawsuit stated that the man told a female client that he was gay in order to put her at ease, but he was ultimately fired after the woman’s boyfriend complained to the company.

Under the Obama Administration, claims of LGBTQ discrimination were treated under sex discrimination. However, the Trump Administration has argued that gay or transgender workers are not legally protected under the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 as this was not the intention of this act. However, by urging the Supreme Court to ban discrimination based sexual orientation, the large companies that hire and employee LGBTQ workers are essentially arguing that they should be held accountable for providing LGBTQ workers with the same protections that others are provided.

Companies are not legally able to discriminate against an employee based on that employee’s sex, original, marital status, race, age or any disability that the employee may have. However, this leaves LGBTQ workers potentially unprotected as a result of the arguments surrounding whether sexual orientation discrimination is legally defined as being under sex discrimination or not. If a person is not hired, is fired or is skipped for a promotion on the basis of that person’s sexual orientation, an employment law attorney may review the complaint to determine if the person is entitled to seek compensation.

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