Monitor Board of Contributors: Provide workplace protections for sexual orientation, gender identity
Rabbi ROBIN NAFSHI, The Concord Monitor, August 15, 2013

One day, my boss asked me to attend a conference with him in a distant city... He pressed, eventually letting me know that he wasn't inviting me for my data entry skills. I refused his advances, and he said to me, "What are you, a lesbian?"...

I responded, "Well, in fact, I am."

"You're fired!," he called out...

I had no recourse. New York had no law barring workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In fact, such a law was not enacted in New York until 2002, after more than 30 years of trying. If I had been working in New Hampshire in the late 1970s, I would not have had any recourse here, either. The Granite State did not enact its law protecting workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation until 1998.

New Hampshire and New York are two of only 21 states that offer workplace protections to individuals based on their sexual orientation. It's hard to believe that the United States, a nation that prides itself on fairness and equality, and which encourages all people to get ahead through hard work, doesn't ban discrimination in employment for tens of millions of Americans.