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 Decision: Tormenting of Gay Men & Lesbians is A-OK Federal Anti-Bias Law is Unlikely with Bush in Office |
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Compiled By GayToday
Las Vegas, Nevada--A gay male, Medina Rene, working as a butler at the MGM Grand
Hotel here was subjected daily by his biased male co-workers to harassment. He
complained to the hotel's managers that his co-workers had been grabbing
his crotch, poking him, making him look at pictures of naked men having sex, whistling,
blowing kisses at him and calling him "sweetheart." His complaints fell on deaf managerial ears,
however.
After two full years of such harassment (1994-1996) Rene decided to sue. Last Thursday a U.S. Court of Appeals panel in San Francisco rejected his case in a 2-to-1 decision. Workplace harassment of gay men and lesbians is "appalling," said a pro-discrimination judge who ruled, however, that it does not violate any federal laws. "We're beginning to see how bullied school children labeled 'faggots' are now striking back with guns, and yet public school teachers are seldom permitted to discuss anti-gay prejudices in their classes," noted GayToday's Jack Nichols, "This latest court decision certainly makes one wonder—now that there's no recourse in most states for adult workers bullied on the job— just how long its going to take before some tormented employee goes 'Postal.' " An anti-discrimination law has failed to pass in the U.S. Congress and with anti-gay Republicans virtually in control of all three branches of government, such a law is believed to have little or no chance, especially considering that George W. Bush has openly opposed just such a change in the status quo..
The high court's previous decision, according to Thursday's two pro-discrimination judges, would require that any harassment must be motivated by sexual desire or sexual hostility, or if the harasser treated men and women differently. Harassment on account of sexual orientation doesn't count, they said. "The degrading and humiliating treatment Rene contends that he received from his fellow workers is appalling," said the majority opinion by Chief Judge Procter Hug. "However, this type of discrimination, based on sexual orientation, does not fall within the prohibitions" of the ban on sex discrimination. Judge Dorothy Nelson, the sole dissenter, stated that same-sex harassment amounts to sex discrimination "when the abuse is physical and sexual." She noted how co-workers had attempted to "humiliate Rene as a man." |
