Paul Giorgio: Republicans Need To End Discrimination In Workforce

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Paul Giorgio, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Times are changing and the Republican Party needs to change with them, says Paul Giorgio.

Last week the United States Senate, by a vote of 64 to 32, voted to end workplace discrimination against gay, bi-sexual, and transgender Americans. Ten Republicans voted for the measure including conservative stalwarts John McCain and Orin Hatch. Both had voted against the measure 17 years ago. The bill was sponsored by republican Susan Collins of Maine.

This was a bi-partisan effort that showed the country what the government could do when it works together. Coming a couple of weeks after the government shutdown and the debt ceiling crisis, it was heartening to see some good coming out of the Senate.

The bill is simple: it just says that employers cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual preference. This right, if enacted by the House, will enshrine it along with other laws that prohibit discrimination based on gender, religion, age, or race.

Simple enough you say. But not really simple in speaker John Boehner's House of Representatives, where Tea Party conservatives hold a firm grip on the Speaker.

Redefining family

This bill was proposed just about fifty years after the landmark Civil Rights Act. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois extolled his colleagues to vote to pass the measure, pointing out that the Republican Party was founded on the principle of anti-discrimination. He spoke about president Abraham Lincoln giving his life to end slavery and discrimination against African Americans.

But Speaker Boehner has already said that he will not bring the bill up. The House Republicans claim that it is anti-family. But I ask, anti-whose family? The American family has changed in the last 20 years. It is no longer a father, mother, and two children. The Ozzie and Harriet family of the 1960s no longer exists. The American family today is most likely fractured by divorce. It may be multi-racial. The family may even have two dad or two moms. To say the bill is anti-family is totally preposterous.

What is anti-family is the Republican view that a mother or father can lose their job simply because they are gay. How does that mother or father support their family if they've been fired from their job not because they didn't do a good enough job, but because they happen to be gay?

Times have changed

Boehner’s opposition goes to the root of the Republican Party’s problem with Americans. The Republican Party view of America is that 1960 views no longer grounded in reality. To survive electoral defeat and to become relevant again, the GOP must end its war on social issues. John Boehner must tell them to end their pattern of discrimination against women, minorities, and gays.

The Republican members of the House of Representatives are once again going to find themselves on the wrong side of history. They need to vote to end discrimination of all kinds of American citizens.

Paul Giorgio is a longtime Democratic Party Activist who has worked on numerous campaigns. He was a Lead Advance Person for President Clinton & Vice President Gore. He was Deputy Director of Special Events for President Clinton’s first Inauguration. He has been elected a delegate to numerous Democratic National Conventions and recently served as one of President Obama’s representatives on the Platform Committee. In 2013 he was chosen as a Presidential Elector. He is the President of Pagio, Inc., publishers of Pulse Magazine, Vitality Magazine and Worcester Medicine.