My job has taught me much in terms of diversity in the workplace. Every 10 years, the U.S. takes a Census. I used to read these things dating back to the 1800s when it was organized by Soundex when my mom was doing geneology for the Mormon church. I like geneology as a past-time but now my interest in the Census is a bit different.
You see, in 2010, the government will be checking to see how many people live where, in what dwelling, (in the 1800s, and again during the Great Depression, it was not uncommon for hired hands on farms and students and other workers to be boarders and not actually part of the family, and as you may recall, many extended family members might have been invited as either hands or working other roles (mining for example)).
The private sector asks standard HR questions to all it's employees...for affirmative action practices but the government is *REQUIRED* to have that information. e.g.: Those categories we all balk about. a) Male, b) Female. a) White/Causasian, b) Hispanic/Latin American, c) Black/African American, c) Polynesian/Pacific Islander etc. and they recently added "Two or More" as a catch all and so on.
Here's the thing, there are in fact diversity requirements. Investigations and reports that analyze the civilian labor force and why a government agency does or does not have numbers that match the local population based on the Census. Yes, you heard that right, the Census. Ok, this is preschool for some of you so I'm going to make my point here. (see subject line again)
One part of LGBT rights might involve (beyond passing the Matthew Shepard Act or finding a gay gene), getting into the census. A gay couple will get more equal opportunity enforcement if the Census were to record this kind of information. The government would then be able to help us out more. Millions of dollars are being spent on everyone else really because of this...but why not us (LGBT)?
So what I would like to see, (in addition to the cure for AIDS, a gay gene (because this helps), is to be included here. There is a mountain of efforts made by agencies to meet quotas based on race, disabilities, and create job fairs, training seminars and a host of other activities based on race and gender and more recently disability but ominously missing is sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is also not a part of most discrimination clauses for equal opportunity in housing, work (and taxes...e.g.: marriage).
Please make this a point whenever the discussion of equal rights comes up. Please understand the system and how it systematically excludes us.
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