State Rep. Patricia Todd, Alabama’s only openly gay legislator, is preparing a bill to ban workplace discrimination against gay and lesbian state employees, but Vice Dean James Leonard recently told the Anniston Star that attempts to use Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to challenge such discrimination in federal courts has been “hit or miss.”
Some have argued quite successfully that discrimination against gays is similar to gender discrimination as defined under civil rights law, Leonard said. Courts, though, have rejected such claims, noting that gay rights weren’t on the minds of lawmakers when the law was designed in the mid-1960s.
“Think of “Mad Men” or something like that,” he said, referring to the hit television show that is set in the 1960s. “That kind of progressivism just was not in the air.”
For more, read “Bill Would Protect Against Discrimination Based On Sexual Orientation.”