from NOLO.com
"Although the federal government provides no protection, about half of the states and the District of Columbia prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in both public and private jobs. A few states prohibit discrimination in public workplaces only. Even if your state doesn't protect you, your city or county might. Over 180 cities and counties prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in at least some workplaces. Finally, some individual employers and companies have adopted their own policies prohibiting workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians. To find out which states have antidiscrimination laws and to learn about other laws which might protect you, see Nolo's article Sexual Orientation Discrimination: Your Rights."
This information provides grey area between my naive "no you can't" and the authors "Yes they can" fire someone simply for being gay.
With all the redundancy to cover where the feds or a state may leave a void, it's unlikely that most people would be able to be so easily let go. And this doesn't even mention unions, which would prevent this type of behavior (if the victim was tenured, at least).
I've done business all over the country, and I've heard war stories about how difficult it is to fire someone. Anyone. For anything. So I doubt that an annual trip to Provincetown would be evidence enough.
So I stand by my original statement that it would not be so simple for the author to be fired, and therefore his "factoid" was misleading.
tailgater wrote:
