HOW SAFE IS YOUR JOB?

our mind is miles away as the phone on your

Yas

desk rings; you're so engrossed in the report

you're working on you hardly listen as you stuff it between your shoulder and ear and mumble Statistics."

It's your boss asking you to come to his office. The tone is distant, somehow distracted. You think it odd but dismiss the thought.. Even bosses have off days.

As you sit in the chair in front of his desk he doesn't look up. The alarms start going off in your head. Your stomach begins to knot. Did you screw up? The boss is too cool, too impersonal. He finally looks up. He is not smiling.

"I'm going to make this short. It has come to my attentin that you do not live alone." He pauses, fixing you to the chair with a gaze like the pin holding a butterfly to a display board. You flush red, open your mouth, then close it.

You are found out.

"Your 'friend' and you are quite close, are you not?" His face creases in disdain, disgust. "How old are you? Why is a woman your age unmarried? Do you go out with men?' His voice raises both in pitch and intensity. "Just what are you??!"

You rage; inside you seethe with humiliation and a feeling of violation. This is none of your business! your mind screams.

go best for

His ...it would you if you just clear out your desk and leave. I'll call payroll and have them prepare your check..." goes through your head

hat numbly back to

as

your desk.

"What will I do. My God, what am I going to do?"

Gays: An Unprotected Minority in the Workplace

A report prepared by the Michigan Organization for Human Rights Acknowledgements to Fred H. Greenstein and Robert W. Lundy.

n all too many instances, individual workers have been subject to unfair and capricious policies of their employers. The law amplong has long abandoned the notion that

left solely to the discretion of management. Collective bargaining has been encouraged, and Legislators and judges have Penumerated many aspects of the employment relationship which employment must be governmentally regulated. To protect individual

workers, litigation has involved

matters such as occupational safety and health, minimum wage assurance, social security, child labor limitations, workers compensation, pension security, etc.

Lawmakers have also striven to assure all persons fair employment opportunities consistent with their training and ability. It is recognized that members of minority groups who seek employment or promotion, or access to benefits often confront dicrimination and hardship. It may be overt; or it may be unintended, systematic, and nearly undetectable on the surface. Either way, it exists frequently. A number of federal and state statutes have been enacted to prohibit such discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or handicap status.

The law, however, offers substantially less protection against employment discrimination on the basis of another minority identity, homosexuality, otherwise termed sexual orientation or sexual preference. Gays are openly discriminated against in employ

ment and a wide variety of other situations, and except in limited situations, the law permits employers to demonstrate bigotry against homosexuals. A too often close-minded society puts severe career constraints on gays who

come out or have revealed involuntarily their sexual identity. The extent to which a gay individual experiences discrimination in employ ment for conversely, obtains occupational and financial success), is usually closely correlated with ability to deny or conceal homosex ual preferences.

There is a handful of occupations in which gays face no discrimination: for example, hairdressing, fashion design, interior decorating, and other forms of artistic expression. Such work, however, tends to be as heavily stereotyped as were the traditional Negro occupations of janitor, porter, and prize fighter. Employment in such careers often carries a stigma.

Admittedly, some gays are successful and respected in the mentioned occupations. These in-

dividuals, however, represent a very small proportion of the gay population. Most gays attempt to pass as non-gays or accept the cover that the assumption of heterosexuality brings. However, because such cover is difficult, they are ferquently shuffled into jobs which carry rather low prestige, security and rewards. Research suggests a disproportionately high number of male homosexuals find employment as waiters, hospital orderlies, and retail sales clerks. It is doubtful that gay men gravitate toward

these jobs because they enjoy waiting on tables, cleaning bedpans or stocking shelves

Gays have historically been discriminated against by both public and private employers. The absence of any definitive Supreme Court ruling has permitted state and federal courts to exercise wide latitude in determining the rights of gay persons, regarding equal employment opportunity in both sectors.

The federal government, as a major employer of the nation's workforce, has been traditionally recognized as a leader in liberal employment practices. The government's attitude toward a given group is seen as the liberal benchmark evaluation of the group's employability. Consequently, the government's exclusion of gay employees significantly jeopardizes their ability to find employment elsewhere..

Until recently, the United States Civil Service Commission maintained the positions that "persons about whom there is evidence that they have engaged in homosexual or sexually perverted acts ..., without evidence of rehabilitation, are not suitable for federal employment. The core rationales offered suggest that homosexuality violates societal mores, that gays are emotionally unstable, and are particularly susceptible to threats of blackmail. This reasoning must be examined.

The argument that the practice of excluding gays from employment obeys public mores, ignores the fact that public mores frequently can and do change. Given time, without governmental advocation of intolerance, public mores will actually evolve into an attitude of toleration and understanding of homosexuality

The idea that all gays are emotionally unstable finds its main support from studies of homosexuals in prison or undergoing psychiatric treatment. Research on homosexuals found in the general popula tion shows generally no significant differences in emotional stability between homosexuals and heterosexuals.

The contention of susceptability to blackmail is most frequently and logically raised in cases involving

METRA MAGAZINE 9