Diversity Rules Magazine

11 Diversity Rules Magazine November 2019 Her most recent book, An American Queer, a collec on of "The Ama- zon Trail" columns, was presented with the 2015 Golden Crown Literary Society Award in Anthol- ogy/Collec on Crea ve Non Fic on. This, and her award-win- ning fic on, including The Raid, The Swashbuckler, and Beggar of Love, can be found at h p://www.boldstrokes- books.com/Author-Lee-Lynch.html. Damned if I know whether or not all the rabble-rousing of the last sixty years has done us a lick of good. I thought the issue of our rights was pre y much se led, but on October eighth, 2019, Stanford Law School professor Pamela Karlan argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that gay employees are already protected from job dis- crimina on under Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964 federal civil rights law. Some of the Jus ces seemed to believe that the in- clusion of sexual orienta on in Title VII would have appeared preposterous to the court in 1964. Yet, Ms. Karlan argued, the Supreme Court has applied twenty-first century standards to a number of prior decisions. Discrimina on against a person because of gender, she stated, already covers discrimina on against sexual orienta on. A woman who dates another woman and is fired for it is the object of discrimina on by the simple fact of her gender. A man will not be fired for da ng a woman. The argument is plainspoken and ironclad. Some of the judges needed it repeated many mes in many ways. I'd been out four years by the me Title VII went into effect. The prac ce of favoring men over women was so blatantly wrong in my mind, I couldn't believe a law was necessary. It certainly had nothing to do, in the late 1960s, with queer people keep- ing our jobs. You just shut up and stayed in your closet at work. When I became a voca onal coun- selor a few years later, my focus was on ge ng people employed, anywhere, anyhow. There was no ques on of finessing hires. Women became sewing machine operators at the clothing manufacturers of Bridgeport, Connec cut. Men delivered the raw materials, carted away the completed garments, and, for maybe ten cents an hour more, maintained the sewing machines. To have ques oned the part I played in matching the unemployed to jobs by gen- der was to let my principles— and the law—come between desperate women, des tute men, and their survival. To invoke, or even be aware of, their newly stated rights, was irrelevant for most minimum wage workers. Hearing Title VII invoked in defense of gay workers in 2019 was an eye-opener. Ms. Karlan offered the Supremes, and Congress, an out. New, excrucia ngly drawn-out legisla on is not needed. If a man is fired because he loves another man, and a woman is not fired because she loves a man, then the original man was fired because he's a man. Pe- riod. These arguments come up, not because the fired in- dividual is a bad employee, but because the employ- er has a prejudice, a historical, religious, or personal belief about gay people. In other words, because the employer has the power. Just like the women ruining their eyes and hands sewing, the men de- stroying their back and knees car ng, the fired gay person is a vic m of someone who has more power, in these cases, the employer. The United States was not created to disenfranchise people, although we do a lousy job of respec ng the rights of Na ve Americans and other people of color. When the worker is powerless, the employer Amazon Trail - Con't on page 12 The Amazon Trail Damned If I Know By Lee Lynch (c) Can Stock Photo Inc. / grsphoto

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