Romney, the GOP and Employment Discrimination

I've been asked at times why gays and the pro-choice movement often seem to team up together.  I tell those who ask the question that the answer is really very simple: we have a common enemy in the Republicans and Christofascists who seek to force their religious beliefs on all Americans be they gay, female, or non-Christian.  

The same situation holds true for gays and women in general.  Both groups face inequality and discrimination in the work place which is a circumstances which is just fine with today's GOP and the Christianists who (i) prefer to see gays fired at will by employers (ii) believe that women should be subordinate to men (and ideally in the home, barefoot and pregnant).   For LGBT Americans the map below shows the reality of employment discrimination largely due to Republican/Christianist anti-gay policies.  And this situation is just fine with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan who - does the GOP party platform - oppose the enactment of employment protections for LGBT Americans such as ENDA at the federal level.  The Center for American Progress quantifies what this equates to:

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• 76,300,000 workers, or 55% of all workers, can be unduly forced into unemployment based on sexual orientation- or gender identity-discrimination

• 42,044,205 children currently live in a state that has failed to pass a law that would make firing their parent, guardian, or other caretaker illegal

• In terms of area, 71%of the square mileage in the United States are in states that afford no legal protections for gay and transgender workers

• 75% of all US counties are in states where it remains legal to fire someone for being gay or transgender under state law

As for women, Romney/Ryan and the GOP oppose equal pay for women performing the same job as men.  While they may dance around the topic and/or seek to avoid answering questions put to them, actions and laudatory words of Mitt Romney tell the real story.  A piece in Think Progress looks at the issue of equal pay for women and the type of Supreme Court Justice a president Romney would appoint.  It should frighten all women (other than those born to wealth and privilege such as Ann "Marie Antoinette" Romney.  Here are excerpts:

The truth, however, is that we do not have to wonder about what Romney’s view on equal pay for women is. We do not even have to wait for his campaign to reveal Romney’s unspoken view on this issue, because the question can be answered in just one picture. This one:

 

That’s Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the Ledbetter opinion stripping many women of their right to equal pay for equal work. When asked how he would select his Supreme Court appointments if elected president, Romney named Alito, along with Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia and Thomas, as his models. All four of Romney’s model justices voted against Lilly Ledbetter and against equal pay for women.  Romney’s promise to place more Alitos on the Supreme Court matters much more than his claim that he is not currently interested in enacting anti-woman legislation.

Justice Alito’s Ledbetter opinion did not simply reject a woman’s claim that could enforce her right to equal pay, it thumbed its nose at a unanimous Supreme Court precedent and relied, at least in part, upon a precedent that had been overruled by an Act of Congress. The sort of justice that would do this does not care whether Congress enacted a law protecting equal pay for women, and Romney wants to put even more of them on the Supreme Court.  . . . .Until he takes back his promise to give America more Sam Alitos, anything else he says about equality is empty words.