It’s taken nine years for the Colorado legislature to pass a bill outlawing workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Gov. Bill Owens has three weeks left to decide whether to sign it into law.
Every poll for a decade has shown overwhelming support in Colorado and across the country for workplace protections for gays.
So I got to wondering: If enacted, would the law make any difference?
In a state where some municipalities – including Denver and Boulder – have anti-discrimination ordinances and a country where the federal government and most Fortune 500 companies already have equal employment policies for gays in place, is it just another political litmus test?
I mean, it seems unthinkable that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a problem anymore.
Think again.
Callers to the hotline at the Colorado Legal Initiative Project of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center continue to report problems ranging from insults and harassment to discrimination in hiring and promotion – even in cities where legal protections are guaranteed.
The incidents occur at large companies, small businesses, nonprofit organizations and government offices, said John Hummel, legal director for CLIP. There’s no profile of the classic homophobic employer.
In fact, they show up in unexpected places all across the state.
A typical example is the case of a woman who left her desk to take a break from her job at a company in Aurora. “When she came back, she found a computer printout on her desk saying that homosexuality is a sin and evil,” Hummel explained. It was designed to make her feel unwelcome.
It worked.
In another case, a salesman at a furniture store in Denver called CLIP for advice on how to handle a supervisor who constantly referred to him by an expletive commonly aimed at gays. It was about as subtle as a cross-burning.
In this case, Hummel said, relief was sought under Denver’s anti-discrimination ordinance.
A particularly egregious case was that of Richard James Miller, who worked for a large apartment management company in Denver.
On the job, Miller said, he was routinely subjected to anti-gay epithets and homophobic remarks from his supervisor. This was despite a written company policy that proclaimed “zero tolerance” for such behavior, he said.
But when Miller complained to the human resources department, he said, the company tried to make him quit. They reduced his pay by cutting his hours, changed his job and, when the lease for his company-discounted apartment expired, the manager raised his rent by $184 a month – a lot more than the $35 increase he was led to expect.
“They were trying to force me out,” he said.
Miller filed a complaint with the city of Denver and is awaiting a resolution. He has left the company. “But this company has large operations in Fort Collins and Colorado Springs. If I lived there, I’d have no protection,” he said.
Workplace discrimination is much more common that most of us realize, said Michael Brewer, public policy director for the center. Of the estimated 350 calls to the CLIP hotline each year, about a third involve employment complaints.
And that’s a small sample, Brewer said. Since anti-gay discrimination is legal in the state and many homosexuals remain closeted, reliable data about the extent of the problem are elusive.
Under current law, employees in most of Colorado have no rights when it comes to enforcement – even if employers prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
“When they have no legal remedies, there really is no right to be free from it,” Hummel said.
For those who do suffer insults and discrimination, as well as the majority of Coloradans who believe in equal rights for all, the exact numbers statewide are unimportant.
One incident is one too many.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
