Nearly $250 billion in federal contracts given out in the last fiscal year went to contractors operating in states where the companies could fire a worker solely because the person is gay, lesbian or bisexual, a new report has found. A group of organizations that have been urging President Obama to sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT workers will be releasing the new report Tuesday as a step in increasing pressure on the president to act during tax time.While an executive order would only affect companies that do business with the federal government, it's a start. A start with $250B in federal money attached to it.
The report, a copy of which was provided to BuzzFeed Monday night, also has found that nearly $300 billion in federal contracts were given out in states that have no specific state-level protections against anti-transgender discrimination.
Although federal government employees are protected from anti-LGBT discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, there is currently no protection for employees of federal contractors against sexual orientation discrimination and protections against gender identity discrimination are unclear. And while most of the top federal contractors have policies against LGBT discrimination, the report aims to draw attention to the limits employees would have in states without legal protections.
To
be truly and wholly present even for the briefest moment is to be
vulnerable, for we have arrived at the point where the obstacle that
fear constructs between ourselves and others dissolves. It is here that
the heart is drawn out of hiding and the inherent sympathetic response
called compassion arises.
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