Get this. As a California business owner, I have to allow a male employee who wants to wear a dress to work the opportunity to do so. Thanks Gray Davis.
The CA Supreme Court just ruled that if I allow ANY romantic relationships between ANY employees, I can be sued for sexual harassment because I allowed the creation of a "hostile work environment".
But if Allstate can legally get away with firing a pro-marriage guy for his writings off work hours, what's to stop me from firing the transvestite? I actually think that this may be a GOOD THING for pro-business conservatives.
The government interference into the workplace is out of control. I no longer have the ability to make personal, "gut-feel" hiring and firing decisions for my own business, even in "at-will" California, without being subject to any number of lawsuits. I'm not a government agency or a government contractor or a public company, but a private business.
Our pathetically litigious society is one where people feel like you owe them a job. I built my company, and I should be able to hire and fire whomever I please, based of course on behavior alone (not on skin color or other immutable factors).
This means that if I have an employee who's religious behavior is a detriment to the perception of my company, I should have the ability to fire that employee for their behavior, as it affects either their performance, or the perception of my company, as embodied by my employees.
So if Allstate wants to be a company that actively promotes a homosexually charged culture, should they be able to fire hetero employees who do not agree with them?
If so, then it should be the prerogative of every company that wishes to protect its hetero-normative values, to terminate GLBT employees who cannot keep their behavior out of the workplace, or where their identity is inextricably tied to their employment (i.e. a VP, a marketing or sales person, a customer service representative or agent).
Thoughts?
You won't be able to, though, and we all know it.