This And That In The News – Little Battles

"This And That In The News" is about articles in the news that have caught my eye and I want to comment about.

Sometimes it is the little battles that win the war. Yesterday we won a battle in court, a trans-woman down in Atlanta Georgia was fired from her job as a legislative editor in the Georgia General Assembly. She sued for her job back and won, but the state appealed the decision. Yesterday, they state lost the appeal.

Court rules in favor of transgender editor at Legislature
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Bill Rankin
December 6, 2011

The federal appeals court in Atlanta on Tuesday ruled in favor of a transgender woman who was fired from her General Assembly job after disclosing she was going to make the transition from man to woman.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means Vandy Beth Glenn is one step closer to getting her job back as an editor and proofreader of legislation. Glenn was fired in October 2007.

The court upheld a ruling last year by a federal judge in Atlanta. Glenn had not been allowed to return to her General Assembly job, pending the state’s appeal, but has continued to be paid her state salary.
[…]
“An individual cannot be punished because of his or her perceived gender-nonconformity,” Barkett [Judge Rosemary Barkett] wrote. “Because these protections are afforded to everyone, they cannot be denied to a transgender individual. The nature of the discrimination is the same; it may differ in degree but not in kind.”

She sued under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. This is an important case I think because it was the first time that the Equal Protection Clause was used. I know that other cases used the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Also, as far as I know this was also the first case to go to appeal.

The other victory was not in the courts, but in private sector, Macy’s fired an employee for discrimination.

Macy’s Fires Employee For Harassing Trans Woman
Lez Get Real
By: Bridgette P. LaVictoire
December 7, 2011

There are those who seem to confuse religious belief with religious dictatorship, and it appears that Natalie Johnson at the Macy’s department store in San Antonio, Texas made that mistake recently when she refused to allow a trans woman to use the women’s dressing rooms at the store.
[…]
Johnson has every right to believe what she wants to, but she violated Macy’s policy. Her religious liberty was not violated, but her ability to do the job she was hired to do was. She showed that she could not distinguish between religious belief and religious tyranny and decided to deny someone the right to use the facilities that they are entitled to under Macy’s policies. This policy does not open up the dressing rooms to every man out there, like Liberty Counsel wants to imply, but rather only those who are transgender or transsexual.

In the statement made the fired employee attorneys, Liberty Counsel, said,

When Johnson was confronted by her employer, she explained that she could not allow a male to change in a female’s fitting room. Johnson’s boss referred her to Macy’s LGBT policy which allows “transgender” people to change in any dressing room they want. However, Johnson pointed out that the same policy also protects against religious discrimination and, in this case, it protects her right to her beliefs that were being violated.

OK, she claimed it was her religious right to discriminate and that they were violated. However, when an employee is hired they are expected to perform their job which is to sell merchandise to the public, all the public, not just the public that she wants to sell it to. If she said that she didn’t want to sell something to a Muslim, would that have been OK.