Lergnom, it depends on what you mean by “sexual identity,” which is an ambiguous term that really has no meaning in the context of these issues, which arise most often in employment cases… If you mean sexual orientation, you’re probably correct. If you mean gender identity and/or expression, you might not be correct. Although, without doing any research, I don’t recall there being a recent decision on point in the Seventh Circuit (which includes Indiana), the recent trend of decisions in the federal district and circuit courts has consistently favored the interpretation that discrimination against transgender people on the ground of their gender identity or expression constitutes sex discrimination within the meaning of Title VII of the federal civil rights laws, and, therefore, is already prohibited without the need for any additional federal, state, or local statutes expressly protecting trans people against discrimination. (I could explain the logic both of the sex-stereotyping line of cases, based on the Price-Waterhouse decision, and of the more recent cases directly holding that discrimination against someone who changes their sex/gender designation is sex discrimination in and of itself, in the exact same way that discrimination against someone who converts from religion A to religion B constitutes religious discrimination even if the employer or other defendant does not discriminate against those who adhere to their original religion. But I’m sure it would be incredibly boring for most of you!) Still, it’s always better to have express anti-discrimination laws than to rely on judicial decisions from courts lower than the U.S. Supreme Court, or a state supreme court interpreting state law.
No, they don’t want to force people to change beliefs, only behavior. Someone may well despise black people, and they are allowed to believe that black people are inferior or any other negative adjective, but they are restricted in how those beliefs play out in terms of behavior. An employer may believe women are inferior and have no place in the business world. Laws don’t address his beliefs, but they do address his behavior in the workplace.
Wait, @DonnaL, are you saying that if you got a job and then your boss fired you because you were trans, you’d have a cause of action, but if your son got a job in some rural part of Indiana and then his boss fired him because he was gay, he would not have a cause of action?
Well I see absolutely no logical reason (including in Hayden’s rationalization) why a church should be able to discriminate on religious grounds but a person cannot, but for the existence of the First Amendment, I guess.
Cardinal Fang, that’s entirely possible, given the trend of federal decisions in the last 15 years or so, which continue to rule consistently that under Title VII, discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation does not constitute prohibited “sex” discrimination, whereas rulings that discrimination against trans people does constitute sex discrimination have become more and more common. The distinction is rational if you limit yourself to the language of Title VII prohibiting sex discrimination – which is what courts are supposed to do – but it isn’t really fair, which is why a federal law expressly prohibiting all such discrimination is sorely needed.
If my son decides to pursue a Ph.D. and an academic career after getting his master’s degree (and even if he decides to pursue a career in museum work, for which a Ph.D. probably wouldn’t be necessary), that kind of thing could be a real concern for him. One obviously can’t always control where one gets an academic job, and there’s no guarantee of having so many choices that one can turn down all opportunities in states or municipalities without protection against sexual orientation discrimination.
“Sell a wedding cake that says in great big ol’ script: 'soon as we tie the knot, I intend to do one or all of your girlfriends, dear”?
Maybe as a joke piece the groom might get it by but I might be missing your point."
My point is that these folks who are so anxious to abide by their religious tenets only seem to focus on a small part of their professed faith. There are Ten Commandments, yet these people only seem to want to deny service to those who violate Commandment #11.
I think they want people to do both. I don’t believe some people want others to continue to subscribe to any religious tenets they perceive to be “bigoted.” I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
You do need to read my post again, as no where did I ever say what I said was the Sole Truth. Note the structure of this sentence:
Grammatically, the sentence structure using “such as” indicates a non-exclusive, non-heirachial example, not a one and only. Also note prior to the “such as” the specific word “codes.” The “s” on codes clearly indicates that there is more than one religious code, and thus I never structured the post to say the Ten Commandments are the Sole Truth, as I openly acknowledge other codes and religions exist.
I was simply explaining why and how there are people who have strong religious convictions. In fact, my post applies to pretty much any devout person who follows the religion of his choice and which acknowledges some higher being and which has moral codes of behavior, including Satanism.
The fact that you read that as a lecture really is projection on your part in that there is no teaching of any moral or morals codes of any sort in my post. Read it again, and just notice how generic it is, with an example used to explain the context of why people have strong religious convictions, which are not affected by Man and Man’s reactions.
I am pretty sure it was not two dogs, but a dog and a female dog.
Here’s an example of a Title VII sex discrimination case that the EEOC filed just a few days ago against Southeastern Oklahoma State University, for allegedly discriminating against a trans woman professor: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/3-30-15a.cfm.
Thank goodness they weren’t gay dogs! I was a bit worried.
I didn’t know a dog was automatically male. 
This is the position of a secular person who does not have strong religious convictions and for people who do not practice what they preach. Part of a having a religious conviction is you practice what you believe, not believe one thing and practice another. Believing one thing and practicing another is the role for a hypocritical man who lives out of both sides of his mouth. In devout religion, it is your duty to live as you believe and by your teachings, not by how someone else believes that is opposite your religion.
On a personal level, I never trust anyone that thinks and says one thing and does another in practice. I would never believe a darn word he says or any of his actions. I would find such a person disingenuous. How people could advocate behaving and living like that is beyond me.
EDIT: Just to illustrate how off the wall such the above thinking in the quote above is - I mentioned a previous post that my one grad school wanted me to partake in procedures that involved abortion or abortive preps. How in the world can one have belief that abortion is taking a life and then actually do these actions to adapt to the wishes of others. It makes no sense. Now extrapolate too other issues and it does show that is makes no sense.
You don’t trust anybody. 
I just deleted this. I don’t think we are supposed to be talking about religion here unless we are talking about religious colleges.
@awcntdb - not everything is abortion.
I too never got the logic that “If I disagree and will not follow or act as you believe, then I must hate you.”
My best buddy in college was just the opposite of me politically and in many ways religiously, as well. People wondered how the heck we ever got along so well. One word - respect.
We understood each other had different views and no one tried to change or make the other accept or do things the other did believe in. Plus, he was one darn good wingman, so any disagreements lasted as long as getting into formation at the next party. And we happily still got each other beers.
This is similar to Gordon Liddy and Lanny Davis, who could not be further apart on things, but they are best of friends, and people do not get it. I get it though. And when either of them turns the other down for something or publicly rips onto the other for a certain position, they understand that intellectual and religious differences and disagreements are not the same as hate for the person. Not sure why that is so difficult to understand.
DonnaL, since we’re talking about this at a more informed level and to be clear for anyone reading this, Title VII is directly about discrimination based on gender and the specific wording allows gender identity issues to be litigated. But this area is really weird, as noted in a federal case in Texas late in 2014 which held that discrimination against a person because that person is transgender is okay and is not prohibited, noting that Congress shows no intent to protect trans people as a class and that Congress only means to protect people when they are discriminated against for issues relating to “conformance to sexual stereotypes”. I know that’s clumsily said but the idea is clumsy: the cases protect against sexual stereotyping, which is considered a traditional gender issue, so you can apparently discriminate against a transgender person as a transgender person but not for that person’s conformance or not to sexual gender stereotypes of man or woman. The idea seems to be that if a person is presenting as male or female and is discriminated against for being what is presented, then that is prohibited. But oddly it’s okay to discriminate against them just because you don’t like them being trans.
That said, some locales in Indiana have transgender protection and some don’t. All that have transgender protection also have sexual identity protection, by which I mean the common usage of gay/lesbian (and I assume bi).
Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court case that made it illegal to criminalize gay sex, was barely more than ten years ago, and Scalia and Thomas, who dissented, are still on the Court. Some loon is, right now, trying to put a proposition on the California ballot that California should kill all the gays. It doesn’t take an Einstein to believe that a lot of conservatives really do hate gay people. Or at least, it’s difficult to see the loving part about wanting to lock up or shoot someone for being gay.
Lergnom, that case is an outlier; another Texas case has held the opposite, and in the Jamal v. Saks case in the Southern District of Texas, the defendant, to avoid all the bad publicity it received (not surprisingly, given Saks’s presence in New York and its general claim that it does not discriminate against LGBT people), actually abandoned the motion to dismiss its Houston lawyers had made, arguing that Title VII does not apply to trans people as a matter of law, after the defendant put in its brief and the EEOC filed an amicus brief. Here are links to those briefs, if anyone has any interest: http://jtweisslaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Resp-to-Motion-to-Dismiss-JWF-1.19.19.08-Jamal.pdf; and http://jtweisslaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/EEOC-Brief.pdf. See pp. 16-17 of the first brief, explaining (persuasively, I think) why the November 2014 Texas decision you mention was wrongly decided.