Senate To Vote On Gay-Bias Measure Bill Would Ban Workplace Discrimination

In a surprising victory for gay-rights groups, the Senate agreed Friday to vote on a bill to ban job discrimination against homosexuals and began an emotional debate on the issue.

The bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said the measure was the latest in a long line of civil-rights laws that ended slavery, Japanese internment camps and discrimination against women, racial and religious minorities and the disabled.

“After decades of discrimination against gays and lesbians,” Kennedy said, “the Senate can send a strong signal that merit and hard work, not bias and stereotypes, are what count in job opportunities and the workplace in America.”

The bill, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, would bar an employer from using sexual orientation as a basis for hiring, dismissal, promotion, demotion or changing of pay. The Senate plans a vote on Tuesday.

Opponents of the bill, conservatives of both parties, said the measure would generate scores of new workplace lawsuits.

“This bill represents a massive increase in federal power,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who heads the Judiciary Committee. “The moral and religious sensibilities of millions of Americans will be overridden by this law.”

Hatch added, “Many honest, moral, religious people have objections to hiring homosexuals.”

Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the second-ranking Senate Republican, called the bill a “dangerous” piece of legislation that would “elevate homosexuals and bisexuals to the top of a protected class.”

Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., said, “We’re deciding how far we can go in legislating what employers can do in hiring and firing. There are better ways to protect the powerless.”

Proponents dismissed such fears, stating that few lawsuits had been filed in the nine states with laws barring discrimination against homosexuals in the workplace.