From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 94 11:44:22 -0400 Eastern

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PRESS RELEASE            PRESS RELEASE            PRESS RELEASE  
 
               THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN FUND                    
 
The Nation's Largest Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Political Group   
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To contact the HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN FUND, please call us at
(202)628-4160, fax us at (202) 347-5323 or write to us at PO Box
1396  Washington, DC  20013.  WE CANNOT RESOPND TO E-MAIL.  
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                    WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 1994
 
  EMPLOYMENT NON-DISCRIMINATION ACT GAINS UNPRECEDENTED SUPPORT;
                    CALLS TO CONGRESS ENCOURAGED
     
           Federal Bill Would Prohibit Job Discrimination
                 on the Basis of Sexual Orientation
  
     WASHINGTON -- A bill that would prohibit job discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation has gained an unprecedented
showing of bipartisan support from Members of Congress and the
civil rights community.  The Employment Non-Discrimination Act,
which would provide equal rights in the workplace for lesbian and
gay Americans, won 30 sponsors in the Senate and 112 in the House
soon after the bill's introduction on June 23.  Currently, no
federal law protects people from being refused work, fired,
demoted or otherwise discriminated against on the job because of
their sexual orientation.  Polls show a solid majority of the
American public supports such an anti-discrimination law.
 
     "Workers face anti-gay discrimination every day, and have no
federal law to protect them," said Tim McFeeley, executive
director of the Human Rights Campaign Fund (HRCF), the nation's
largest organization devoted to ending discrimination against
lesbian and gay Americans.  "We have found cases across the
country in which people have been fired, denied jobs or treated
unfairly -- for reasons totally unrelated to their job abilities.
 
Until the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is signed into law,
people who experience such discrimination have nowhere to turn."
 
     Readers and their friends are encouraged to call Congress at
(202) 224-3121 to urge their Senators and Representatives to co-
sponsor the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (bill number S.2238
in the Senate and H.R.4636 in the House).
 
     The original Senate sponsors of the bill are Sen. Ted
Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.).  In the House,
original co-sponsors include Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Rep.
Gerry Studds (D-Mass.) and Rep. Constance Morella (R-Md.).  They
have been joined by Representatives and Senators from 30 states,
Guam and the District of Columbia.  No federal civil rights bill
covering lesbian and gay Americans has enjoyed such broad initial
support.  The Human Rights Campaign Fund is continuing to gather
support in both houses of Congress.
 
     Coretta Scott King, widow of the late civil rights leader
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke at a press conference at the
bill's introduction.  She highlighted the commitment of the civil
rights community to equal rights for gay Americans, "who have
worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone
else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law." 
She was joined by Ralph Neas, head of the nation's leading civil
rights coalition, who committed his organization to championing
the bill through Congress.  The Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights includes 185 organizations representing minorities, women,
persons with disabilities, labor, older Americans, and major
religious groups, and has helped pass every major civil rights
law in the past half century.
 
     National polls show that 76 percent of Americans support
equal employment rights for gay people -- but most Americans (70
percent) do not realize that anti-gay job discrimination is still
legal and widespread.  The Human Rights Campaign Fund is
collecting personal stories of discrimination in the first
nationwide project ever to document job discrimination on the
basis of sexual orientation.  Individual cases will be made
available to the news media and presented to Congress during
hearings on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
 
Personal stories of discrimination include:
 
- a Detroit postal service employee whose discrimination claim
  was rejected by a federal appeals court -- even though he was 
  harassed and beaten at work -- because no federal law
  prohibits anti-gay job discrimination;
 
- a Georgia woman who was fired from her job as an award-winning
  cook because her company adopted a written policy against
  employing gay people;
 
- an Arizona man who was fired for being gay but lost a
  discrimination case when the jury was instructed that "an 
  employee is not wrongfully terminated if he is fired for being
  homosexual;"
 
- a married, heterosexual Kansas man who was refused a teaching
  job because a school employee suggested that he might be gay;
 
- a Mississippi social worker who was fired for showing co-
  workers a photo of herself and her partner -- after being
  encouraged by her co-workers who had passed around family
  photos of their own.
 
Details and contact information for these and other stories are
available from the Human Rights Campaign Fund.  Readers and their
friends are encouraged to contact the Campaign Fund with their
own personal stories at 202-628-4160.
 
                                      - 30 -
 
         1101 14th Street, NW  Suite 200  Washington, DC  20005
              phone:(202)628-4160      fax:(202) 347-5323