JOB UNFAIR

Can You Be Fired For Being Gay In One Of These States?

fired-for-being-gay-1

According to this map, you can be fired for being gay in any one of these 29 states, however, the situation is a bit more complicated than that. Okay, a lot more.

While the 29 states in red lack statewide laws protecting employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, employers can’t necessarily go around firing folks for being L,G,B or T.

Snopes.com explains:

Some of those red states have laws which protect public (i.e. government) employee from sexual orientation discrimination (but not those who work in the private sector), some of those states have laws at county or city levels which protect employees in those local areas from such discrimination, and some of those states protect public employees from employment discrimination through means other than laws (e.g., executive orders, administrative orders, personnel regulations).

Maps like these paint a more accurate, and colorful, picture of how employment discrimination works in the U.S.:

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And they might also explain why gay marriage may be easier to support than the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, since there are fewer colors to wrap your head around:

states-gay-marriageSource: Freedom to Marry

Of course, if everything was all one color — the color of freedom — we’d all be better off. The color of freedom, by the way…is a film no one bothered to see from 2007.

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