State laws banning workplace discrimination against homosexuals have little impact on courthouse caseloads, according to a federal study that directly contradicts the case for vetoing a pending Colorado law.
Gov. Bill Owens is weighing whether to sign or veto Senate Bill 28, which would prohibit on-the-job discrimination against gays and lesbians.
The bill touched off heated debate during this year’s legislative session, with Republican opponents claiming it would unleash a flood of lawsuits against employers.
Owens also has expressed concern that the measure could lead to more litigation.
But in 2002, the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded that state laws banning sexual-orientation-based discrimination led to a small number of lawsuits.
“Overall, the states’ data showed that relatively few complaints of discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation were filed annually,” the report said.
In most states that have protections for gays and lesbians, the number of employment-discrimination cases peaked before 2001, the most recent year in the government survey. In addition, the number of cases brought by gays and lesbians was a small fraction of the total.
The state with the most lawsuits was California, which had 17,668 employment-discrimination claims, including 596 sexual-orientation cases, in 2001. That was 3.4 percent of total claims.
Dayna Shah, associate general counsel for the GAO, said the report has not been updated since 2002. Since then, three more states – Illinois, Maine and New York – have added workplace protections based on sexual orientation.
Michael Brewer, public policy director of the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Community Center of Colorado, said he wasn’t surprised by the report.
“The whole point in passing laws like this is not so people can run off and sue but to prevent future lawsuits,” Brewer said. “It’s so employers will take measures to avoid problems in their workplace.”
Many of the state’s largest employers already have written nondiscrimination policies covering gays and lesbians, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.- based advocacy group.
The group has compiled a list of 46 Colorado-based companies that offer protections for homosexuals, including Fortune 500 companies Ball Corp., First Data Corp., Level 3 Communications and Newmont Mining.
“From everything that I’ve seen, there is not a big legal fallout from this,” said Mark Shields, spokesman for Human Rights Campaign. “There are a growing number of Fortune 500 companies that have policies. This is a case of government and legislatures catching up with where business is already.”
Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-820-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.
