GOP Congressman King - We Need DADT in the Workplace

While LGBT citizens in states like Virginia live in fear of losing their jobs if their sexual orientation is discovered, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) argues that gays, not their bigoted and homophobic employers - are at fault for their own firings. According to King (pictured at left) its LGBT employees making their sexual orientation publicly known that's the cause of their firing. Never mind that many employees don't out themselves and it still doesn't protect them. Think Progress has coverage on King's batshitery which is so much the norm among Republicans - especially those in Virginia who constantly prostitute themselves to the insidious Christianist organization, The Family Foundation, in Richmond. Here are highlights:

To Rep. Steve King (R-IA), the problem is not that it’s legal for employers to fire an employee for being gay. It’s that the employee made his sexual orientation publicly known in the first place.

Think Progress spoke with the Iowa congressman Monday about whether it should be legal for businesses to discriminate in their hiring and firing decisions. King said that “they shouldn’t be able to do that [to] a private business” because “they need to have freedom to operate.”

We asked if this meant that he opposed the idea of forbidding businesses from firing an employee because of her sexual orientation. “How do you know someone’s sexual orientation?” he countered, before proposing an idea similar to the recently repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays in the military. “I would think that unless someone makes their sexuality public, it’s not anybody’s business, so neither is it our business to tell an employer who to hire.”

Nobody should have to hide who they are for fear of losing their job. Gay and lesbian people, like everyone, ought to be able to be themselves and be free from employment discrimination. Unfortunately, in King’s world, it’s an either-or proposition.