Wow – evil in America. The ACLU blog has the details:
A committee of the US House of Representatives decided that employees in the District of Columbia could be fired for using in vitro fertilization to start a family or for becoming pregnant while unmarried.
That’s right, people of D.C.: members of Congress just voted to let your boss fire you for personal decisions you make at the doctor’s office — because your boss believes those decisions aren’t consistent with his religious beliefs. Now, the whole House may take a vote on this discriminatory measure.
What’s next? Will this committee vote to let employers fire people for being atheist, for reading Dan Savage, for not reading the bible, for not going to church, for going to mosque, for dancing, for cheering the wrong football team, for eating falafel? Will this committee vote to let employers imprison employees, or beat them, or withhold their pay, or confiscate their property, or pour boiling water on them?
At the same time, a separate measure introduced in the House would block the Human Rights Amendment Act, another D.C. bill that would ensure that LGBT student groups at religiously affiliated schools and universities have access to the same facilities and resources as their peers. And similar measures on both bills are still pending in the Senate.
In both of these cases, proponents of these congressional actions are stripping these protections in the name of religious liberty.
Of course they are; it’s the hot new thing. Religions are full of ugly rules and laws and taboos that treat sets of people like dirt, so they make a great alibi for being evil. Not that I’m saying that’s why people are religious, but people who demand the right to treat people like dirt because religious liberty – those people have bad priorities.
That’s it, religious right. Keep closing the gap between yourself and ISIL.
Meanwhile, accuse President Obama of being buddies with the terrorists.
(numbers added by me)
2, 6, 7, and 8 are probably already legal, assuming those are the actual self-sufficient reasons and not part of some broader scheme of impermissible discrimination. (E.g. Firing someone for dancing because that means they’re not a True Member of the Right Religion would be illegal, firing someone for dancing because you just think dancing is stupid and frivolous and don’t want employees who do things you think are stupid and frivolous in their spare time is peachy keen.)
In most U.S. jurisdictions, employment is “at-will” and employees can be fired for any reason whatsoever — even stupid, arbitrary, or illogical reasons — with some very specific exceptions.
Perhaps everyone here already knows this, but I encounter a lot of people who are shocked by it.
I already know this and yet I am shocked anew every time it is brought up – even if I bring it up myself.
There are no words.
House of Representatives
Who, exactly, do they represent?
#include
oops, angle brackets! I was going to say “standard rant about ‘representative democracy’ being a scam”
The resolution: https://www.congress.gov/114/bills/hjres43/BILLS-114hjres43ih.pdf I would have liked to see some “whereases”.
It was introduced by the following (all religious affiliations according to Wikipedia):
— Diane Black, from Tennessee’s 6th district, member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
— Bill Flores, from Texas’s 17th district, Southern Baptist
— Mark Meadows, from North Carolina’s 11th district, follower of “Evangelicalism”
The sooner Washington City becomes part of Maryland, the better.
what the hell committee is that, anyway? The Poopy Head Bossy Pants Committee?
Marcus Ranum (#4) –
Who else but the hard core and rabid christians, who say “represent!” to draw attention to themselves and make others feel uncomfortable?
House of Reprehensible is more like it.
So, let me get this straight: Corporations and Employers are people. Employees? Not so much.