Bill banning sexual orientation discrimination passes committee

Legislation that would ban discrimination against federal employees on the basis of sexual orientation unanimously passed the House Government Reform Committee this week by voice vote.

Sponsored by the committee's ranking member, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., the bill (H.R. 3128) is known as the Clarification of the Federal Employment Protections Act and is intended to "dispel any public confusion … that federal employees are not protected from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

"I'm glad this bill to clarify protections for hard-working federal employees is moving forward," Waxman said. "I hope the Republican leadership will bring the bill to the floor quickly and send a clear message to the Bush Administration that the decision to narrowly interpret the law to discriminate based on sexual orientation is wrong and unacceptable."

The legislation, proposed in June 2005, is in response to Senate testimony by Special Counsel Scott Bloch, who said that the law limits the Office of Special Counsel from protecting gay employees from sexual orientation discrimination in every situation.

While Bloch has maintained that the independent agency charged with protecting government employees against prohibited personnel practices could legally accept sexual orientation discrimination complaints, he has limited those to cases involving discrimination for actions such as attending a gay rights rally or engaging in other public behavior.

As OSC chief, Bloch heads up independent investigations and prosecutions of merit system violations in federal agencies. Discrimination involving the knowledge of an employee's sexual orientation, also known as a class status, is not protected by the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, he maintained before the Senate panel on May 24.

"We do not see sexual orientation as a term for class status anywhere in statute or in the legislative history or case law -- in fact, quite contrary to it," Bloch said at the Senate hearing. "We are limited by our enforcement statutes as Congress gives them ... The courts have specifically rejected sexual orientation as a status protection under our statutes."

If the proposed law passes both houses of Congress and is signed by President Bush, it would add sexual orientation to the list of prohibited forms of discrimination against employees or potential employees that includes gender, race, national origin, handicaps, age, political affiliation and marital status.

"This measure would halt the rollback of a law preventing anti-gay discrimination that has existed for three decades," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based gay and lesbian organization. "Today's vote was an important step toward restoring these critical protections."

Currently, the bill has 22 Democratic and four Republican co-sponsors.