The average American does not realize that that it is legal to discriminate against another American on the basis of sexual orientation. A Greenberg Research poll in 1996 found that 85 percent of Americans did not know that federal civil rights laws do not prohibit firing a person solely on the basis of sexual orientation. Current laws do not provide a remedy to gay and lesbian citizens who seek l…
Harassment at school and in the work environment due to sexual orientation is not always legally defensible. Massachusetts, Vermont, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia have statutes that address sexual orientation discrimination in schools. Other states do not. Laws prohibiting discrimination based on sex are more common, but the victim of harassment must demonstrate that the school acted or f…
Historically, homosexuals have been banned from military service. A report by the Government Accounting Office based on Defense Department data from 1980 to 1990 found that the various service branches discharged around 1,500 people each year due to sexual orientation. The GAO also calculated that it cost the government $27 million to recruit and train replacements for gays discharged in 1990. Bet…
While the Supreme Court has long recognized that the right to marry is a fundamental right, the right to a same-sex marriage had been universally rejected by courts until Baehr v. Miike in 1996. The Hawaii Circuit Court held that the failure to legalize same-sex marriages violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Hawaii constitution. Anticipating that same-sex marriage would become legal, Congre…
The AIDS epidemic aroused public fear of gay and lesbian citizens. Many insurance companies refused medical coverage to gays. Initially, almost any treatment was exempt from coverage because it was considered experimental. Other insurance company strategies included stretching out the legal process to let the AIDS patient die before a judgment was entered in favor of the patient and a more recent …
Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information.
Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document.
User Comments