National Geographic

Over one million applicants turned out for McDonald's highly-publicized hiring spree last week.

McDonald’s Corp, the world’s biggest restaurant chain, said it hired 24 percent more people than planned during an employment event this month. McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Previously, it said it planned to hire 50,000. The April 19 national hiring day was the company’s first, said Danya Proud, a McDonald’s spokeswoman. She declined to disclose how many of the jobs were full- versus part-time. McDonald’s employed 400,000 workers worldwide at company-owned stores at the end of 2010, according to a company filing.

The big hiring push was heralded by some as evidence as a surging economy, but you have to wonder what those same analysts say about the 938,000+ plus folks who were desperate enough to work at McDonald's but got turned away.

Newly issued Department of Labor regulations have added gender identity to the class of employment protections. Via press release:

The U.S. Department of Labor today announced its full commitment to implementing equal employment opportunity policies for all department employees and applicants. The policies ensure equal protections for all employees and applicants regardless of race; color; religion; national origin; sex, including pregnancy and gender identity; age; disability, whether physical or mental; genetic information; status as a parent; sexual orientation; or other non-merit factor. New, robust statements signed by Secretary Solis include updated policies on prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, including gender identity and pregnancy. Secretary Solis strongly supports fair equal employment opportunity policies, and creating diversity and fairness in the workplace. “I am expressing my personal commitment to ensure that the U.S. Department of Labor is a model workplace, free from unlawful discrimination and harassment, which fosters a work environment that fully utilizes the capabilities of every employee,” said Secretary Solis. “It is my goal that we achieve and maintain a high-quality, diverse workforce at all organizational levels throughout the department.”

Pregnancy is also new to the above list.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act will be reintroduced in the Senate today.

U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Mark Kirk, R-Ill., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, announced that they introduced the fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit most employers across the country from discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers. The bill, known as ENDA, would make it illegal under federal law for employers with at least 15 employees to discriminate against, harass, or fire anyone due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. While surveys show that over 60 percent of Americans overwhelmingly support workplace protections for LGBT people, it still remains legal in more than half the country for employees and job applicants to be discriminated against based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

While ENDA has a slim chance of success in the Senate, it is doomed in the House, where it was reintroduced last week.

By a vote of 22-2, Hawaii's state Senate has approved a bill banning employment discrimination against transgender residents. The bill has already passed in the state House.

Discrimination against transgender individuals is already illegal in Hawaii for housing, public accommodations and employment, but the ban on employment discrimination has only been established by rulings of the Civil Rights Commission and has not been written into the state statute. The legislation moves to gay-friendly Democratic Gov. Neil Abercromie. Upon the governor's signature, Hawaii will join 12 states and the District of Columbia to provide transgender employment, house and public accommodation protections.

Welcome news, of course, but note that such protections only exist in 12 states. And ENDA remains a faint dream...

"So a six-foot guy who shaves every day can come in wearing a dress, high heels, and earrings and tell his employer that he's really a woman and he wants to use the women's bathroom facilities, and there's nothing the employer can do to stop him if he wants to do business in Metro. Clearly the Metro Council members, a majority of them succumbed to the intense lobbying of a minority that wants special rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people." - Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's "ethics commission," responding to Nashville's decision not to do business with companies that discriminate against their LGBT employees.

RELATED: In 2008 Land named the "homosexual agenda" as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

A little damage control from Target: "Whether we're gay, straight, or identify any other way...we love whoever it is we love."

(Tipped by JMG reader Donald)

RELATED: Target has lost its lawsuit against the gay group it was trying to stop from collecting marriage equality petitions outside its San Diego stores.

Judge Barton said Target and its powerful law firm of Morrison & Foerster, which has offices globally, failed to show sufficient evidence that the big-box retailer’s business was suffering as a result of the petitioners. “This million-dollar law firm overreached in this case,” Watson said. “They got beat by a lawyer fresh out of law school and a volunteer lawyer.” Canvass For A Cause team members were out today at Target stores in Mission Valley in San Diego and in Encinitas. “We are celebrating our freedom of speech rights today,” Watson said.

Target now has a track record of 121-1 against groups canvassing outside its California stores. They are expected to appeal today's ruling, their first such loss.

The doomed-from-the-start 2011 edition of ENDA was introduced yesterday by Rep. Barney Frank. Chris Geidner reports at Metro Weekly:

At the end of the 111th Congress, 203 members of the 435-member body had joined Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) in co-sponsoring the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The jobs protection bill, though only 14 members away from having a majority of the House as co-sponsors, never made it out of the House Education and Labor Committee chaired by ENDA co-sponsor Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). Today, the bill, which would prohibit most employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation of gender identity, was reintroduced by Frank with only a few more than half that number -- 111 co-sponsors.

The HRC's Fred Sainz tells Geidner: "It's a start. The goal will be to work back up to a number that exceeds last session's number with a greater number of Republicans. We know that this is a building session, and frankly, I wouldn't measure success by the number of co-sponsors alone but by the amount of education and outreach we do to members."

If your company discriminates against its LGBT employees, Nashville will no longer do business with you.

Councilman Jamie Hollin, a sponsor of the bill, said after the vote that Metro had “sent a clear signal all around the world” that people of all kinds are welcome to work in Nashville. Advocates of gay rights agreed. “If you’re willing to work hard, and you’re talented, you’re welcome in Nashville, Tenn.,” said Chris Sanders, chairman of the Tennessee Equality Project’s Nashville chapter. Several council members spoke passionately against the bill. Critics on the council had so far made two arguments: that creating another protected class of employee made companies vulnerable to litigation, and that uneven policies across county lines would hamper commerce. Councilman Phil Claiborne said more bluntly what others had hinted at previously. Claiborne said the policy told business owners with religious convictions opposing homosexuality that they had to “abandon their core beliefs” to do business with Metro. “That’s a hypocritical travesty,” Claiborne said.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean is expected to sign the bill.

The Seventh Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court's ruling against an Illinois woman who sued Wal-Mart for religious discrimination. According to the woman, she has a God-given right to scream anti-gay epithets at her coworkers. Gay City News reports:

According to the unsigned ruling, Tanisha Matthews, who describes herself as an Apostolic Christian, worked as an overnight stocker at a Wal-Mart store in Joliet, Illinois. While on a break, she took part in a heated conversation with other employees about God and homosexuality. Another employee who participated reported to management that Matthews was "screaming over her" that God does not accept gays, they should not "be on earth," and they will "go to hell" because they are not "right in the head." During a company investigation of the incident, five other employees confirmed that Matthews said gays are sinners who are going to hell. Wal-Mart managers considered these remarks to be "serious harassment" in violation of the company's "Zero Tolerance" harassment policy, which bars any conduct that could be interpreted as harassment on the basis of categories that include sexual orientation. Serious harassment is considered "gross misconduct" that is grounds for dismissal.

The ruling observes: "If Matthews is arguing that Wal-Mart must permit her to admonish gays at work to accommodate her religion, the claim fails. Wal-Mart fired her because she violated company policy when she harassed a co-worker, not because of her beliefs, and employers need not relieve workers from complying with neutral workplace rules as a religious accommodation if it would create an undue hardship." The above-linked article notes that Christian legal groups have been ramping up claims of the right to proselytize in the workplace. Courts, so far, have largely disagreed.

Read the entire ruling.

"Americans know that advancing employees by merit is what 'wins' for business. And that is why most employers don’t discriminate against gay people. Once again, government shouldn’t be telling entrepreneurs how to run their enterprises. They don’t need a nanny state to tell them as much. If a company discriminates against quality gay people, it will suffer in the marketplace, with a lower caliber of worker and a reduced efficiency of operation.

"Alas that Log Cabin cannot put forward a conservative position on gay issues and still feels instead it just has to join the gay groups in looking for solutions to the perceived problems in our community. With increasing social acceptance of gay people, with more and more corporations adopting non-discrimination policies and offering domestic partnership benefits, ENDA is a solution in search of a problem. And conservatives would do well to oppose it." - B. Daniel Blatt, Gay Patriot blogger and GOProud member.

"The attempt by the Republican party to overreach following last November's elections and cripple the ability of workers to organize -- and, incredibly, to roll back protections like child labor laws, as in Maine, where Republicans are seeking to create a rotating, vulnerable and underpaid workforce that will further disempower low-wage household earners -- has generated a backlash unlike anything we have seen in half a century. Liberal and progressive forces have an opportunity to use this fight to reclaim the political agenda in America and to reframe the political narrative. LGBT advocates and the LGBT community need to be a part of this urgently important moment. We need to be visibly showing up and contributing our efforts, so that our allies in labor, in state legislatures, and in political parties and organizing committees around the country will know that we were there when it mattered. And, in putting skin in the game, we will be able to play a part in defining the agenda and narrative that will emerge from this reawakening of the American worker." - Activist and UPenn law professor Tobias Wolff, calling on the LGBT community to rise up against anti-union forces.

"The gay movement’s tactics smell more and more like Joe McCarthy than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Hounding people and going after their livelihoods, because they express a view held by numerous mainstream Christians is mean, intolerant, and unacceptable to most Americans. We call on Joe Solomonese, Evan Wolfson and other mainstream gay marriage groups to call off their dogs, renounce these tactics of intimidation and religious bigotry, and restore the face of their movement into something more resembling tolerance and fair play for all Americans." - NOM president Brian Brown, in a press release denouncing Equality Michigan, who is pressuring a local city to fire recently hired human resources executive Crystal Dixon based on her anti-gay past.

In 2008 Dixon lost her job as vice president of human resources with the University of Toledo after penning a viciously anti-gay opinion piece for a local newspaper. Dixon claimed that she was writing as a private citizen, even though she referenced the university in her column. Her case remains among the small handful continuously cited by anti-gay groups as evidence of escalating "homo-fascism."

Equality Michigan: "Jackson residents deserve someone who is qualified to serve as their human resources director. The job in question places Crystal Dixon as lead negotiator for contract agreements and will make her an influential voice in searches for department heads. She needs to be capable of providing equal opportunity and advocating for the interests of all Jackson residents. Her job history simply makes her unqualified to serve the entire Jackson community."

That will come as a shock to public workers.

The 2011 version of ENDA doesn't have the remotest chance of passage and the Family Research Council knows it. Nevertheless, they have relaunched their campaign declaring that granting LGBT people to right to keep their jobs is nothing short of all-out assault on Christianity and the U.S. Constitution. And as an example of the coming ENDA-generated avalanche of anti-Christian discrimination, Tony Perkins again trots out Marcia Walden, who was terminated from her job as relationship counselor when she refused to speak with a lesbian client. Nationwide such cases number a mere handful (I can only think of two or three), which is why you see the same anti-gay "victims" over and over.

Poz.com reports:

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency responsible for enforcing laws against workplace discrimination, has released the final revised version of its Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations, according to an EEOC statement. The EEOC's new regulations clarify that impairments of major bodily functions-such as being HIV positive-qualify as disabilities under the law. The revisions were triggered by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, which overturned a number of Supreme Court rulings that defined "disability" narrowly, reinforcing the inclusive intentions of the original legislation.

Read the full EEOC statement.

Rep. Barney Frank will reintroduce the trans-inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) this week. Metro Weekly's Chris Geidner reports that even Frank has no illusions about the bill's chances.

Although the bill is not expected to move forward in the House under the leadership of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Frank, talking with Metro Weekly on Sunday, March 27, says, "It's an organizing tool. Obviously, with the Republicans in power, you're not going to get the bill even considered." But, Frank -- the longest-serving out member of Congress -- says, "I'm going to be urging people to spend their time talking to those who have voted in the past for ENDA and are supportive of ENDA but where we're not certain they're still with us on the transgender issue."

Talking about the bill's movement -- or lack thereof -- in the 111th Congress, Frank says, "[W]e have work still to do and we have overwhelming -- over 90 percent -- support on the Democratic side for ENDA based on sexual orientation and we had, in the last Congress, about 30 Republicans that way. Unfortunately, there's a drop-off from that number to transgender, and this is a chance to work hard to sway those who are committed to ENDA to support the full transgender inclusion as well."

Frank predicts that "ENDA will pass before DOMA is repealed legislatively."

RELATED: A trans-exclusive version of ENDA strongly opposed by some major LGBT rights groups passed in the U.S. House in 2007. Last year an anti-gay Christianist group listed the 2010 introduction of ENDA as the "worst anti-Christian act of the year."

Yesterday the city council of Ogden, Utah voted unanimously to approve an ordinance banning housing and employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Last week Ogden's mayor had vowed to veto an earlier 4-3 vote, but Pride In Utah reports that three of the city council members moved the tally to a veto-proof 7-0 after intense lobbying from local activists and the insertion of language protecting freedom of speech. The seventh-largest town in Utah, Ogden becomes the state's 12th municipality to approve a bill banning anti-gay discrimination.

"I am equally committed to the full and meaningful implementation of Equal Employment Opportunity policies for all HHS employees and applicants. My goal is to create an environment within HHS, free of discrimination, where all employees may work without fear of reprisal or discriminatory harassment; where qualified employees and applicants with disabilities receive reasonable accommodations; and where all employees are recognized for their individual performance and contributions to HHS, without regard to race, national origin, color, age, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), sexual orientation, disability (physical or mental), status as a parent, genetic information, or other non-merit factor. I fully expect all employees and supervisors to adopt these goals. With your support and participation, we can ensure workforce diversity and equal opportunity are two of our greatest strengths." - Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, via press release.

(Tipped by JMG reader Nicholas)

Things begin to go nuts at 2:30.