Discrimination Against Gays and Lesbians in the Workplace

The topic I have chosen for my research paper comes under the general heading of culture. Culture may be defined as the language, beliefs, values, norms, and material objects passed from one generation to the next. The specific topic I proposed to investigate is discrimination of homosexuals in the workplace. This topic is particularly interesting to me because I am an advocate of equality for all. I believe that no matter your race, age, sex, or sexual orientation you should be treated fairly. My paper will provide an in depth look at this type of discrimination, the laws that protect the victims, and explain how this affects our society. Finally, I will describe the insights I have gained in researching this topic as well as pose some additional questions on the topic.

Lesbians and Gay men face discrimination everyday for their choice of lifestyle choosing a different sexual orientation has caused them to be discriminated against. The people that are a part of the homosexual community have to deal with inequality in the world in general but the workplace is supposed to be a place of business. Homosexuals are the victims of harassment, unlawful termination, and hate crimes especially in the workplace. These things take place because of sexism and inequality (Mills).

These types of discrimination stem from large corporations that see homosexuals in the workplace as a threat. They feel that the image that their company is trying to portray is not one of homosexuality. This can lead to their own judgments overcoming that of the other employees that feel that homosexuality is okay. But, there are some employees that feel the way big corporations do which causes problems as far as discriminatory acts towards homosexuals in the workplace. Because of the awareness of these employees homosexuality is put on the front line, persecution of homosexuals rights and lifestyle is escalated and therefore turned into a larger problem than what was foreseen in the first place. The image that employers and companies preconceive is one of heterosexuality; when there are homosexuals employees it causes more problems to evolve. It is not only a threat to the company at this point, but a threat to the homosexual employee whose rights are being denied.

In other issues homosexuals have it harder when it comes to crimes against them because, the crimes are mostly committed by people the same sex. Most offenses that are encountered are ignored by police officers and sometimes their employers. Implying that an openly gay or lesbian victim shares responsibility for being attacked, or that an attack was justified because of an unwanted romantic or sexual advance often biases criminal or legal investigations(Mills).Another example is that there is no federal hate crimes law that protects victims based on their sexual orientation( Mills).

Other laws such as The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 which in order to establish unlawful discrimination; a comparison is required between the complaint and an actual or hypothetical comparator of a different sex in ‘relevant circumstances’ which are “the same or not materially different’ (Unison, 2002). For instance a basic need for everyone is health care, but because of there sexual orientation they receive lesser benefits than those of heterosexual marriages (Carroll, 2003).

Discrimination against homosexuals is a prominent issue that we have in society. Society upholds the tradition that a couple should be made up of male and female. In the past few years we have started to broaden our horizons and think outside the box. There are a variety of different perspectives