These Shoes Hurt

Today I had a smidgen of what it feels like to be discriminated against like gay people.

My boss came in my office and asked me to complete a project for him. He is trying to land an account and one of the requirements they have when doing business with other companies is that the company have health care offered for domestic partnerships. We didn’t prior to this. It was my job to update the documents to reflect this addition in coverage.

It’s a small office and I am the only one who isn’t currently married. If you have been reading this blog you know I attempt it every few year thus the use of the word ‘currently’. Anyway, I told my boss I thought it was great that we were now offering this, though it won’t be utilized unless we hire other people. I then asked if it was difficult to obtain. He told me that indeed it was very easy to get and it didn’t cost any more to offer it. Obviously if we were insuring more people it would raise the premiums.

I noticed he wasn’t nearly as happy about this as I was and asked why.

“It’s wrong” he said.

I asked him why he thought it was wrong and he just said it was wrong. That was what he believed. He then went on to say that it didn’t really matter what he believed. His tone was rather philosophical. Basically he was saying that sometimes in life there are things he doesn’t like and there isn’t anything he can do about it but roll with it.

I like my boss. I like my job. I like the company and what it does. I like the other people I work with. But suddenly it felt like a wall had been put between me and the job. My boss knows that I blog, he knows about my other blog but not this one. You can get from my other blog to here but it isn’t easy. However before I knew how he felt about this issue I mentioned that I blogged about issues just like this. I said it in a rather upbeat and proud tone. I don’t know if he heard me however. It doesn’t matter really.

He left my office and I worked on the new assignment. And I kept replaying our conversation and what it meant in my head. I was not happy about this. I didn’t like that he was against providing insurance to domestic partners. To be fair he didn’t say he was against gay people, though that is the implication, he just said he was against offering health coverage to people who weren’t married.

Of course the problem is that in all but two states gay people can’t get married. So the government has offered this consolation prize of ‘domestic partnership’. I didn’t bother to mention this to my boss. I was already disappointed and wanted the conversation to end before I said or did something stupid.

I have a real problem with this. It isn’t just that we disagree about the Twins and the Red Sox. This is a basic human right as far as I am concerned and he believes that it is okay to discriminate against gays.

If I’m not mistaken we have this little thing called the Declaration if Independence which states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Except of course for gay people.

The argument that its “just wrong” doesn’t really fly with me. Tell me why it’s wrong, and because the bible says so doesn’t count. The bible says a lot of stupid things that we no longer practice or consider legal. There also seems to be some conflicting statements in the bible regarding homosexuality and there is the problem of translation. Too many fuzzy justifications. Lets leave it out of the argument.

My issue isn’t about the laws or rights of our country, not in this post anyway. My problem is that I don’t agree with my boss on a very big issue. If he and I disagreed on abortion I could still work with him with peace of mind. If he and I were supporting different presidential candidates I could still respect him. This is about denying one group of people that which every other person is guaranteed.

Ah, you say, but gay people have the right to get married just so long as they marry the opposite sex. This is true but hardly conducive to personal happiness and fulfillment. Gay people can get married as long as they don’t marry the person they love. (Dripping sarcasm) And the Christian groups talk about the mockery of marriage that would happen if gays could marry each other. Of course we already have people like Elizabeth Taylor and Larry King who have made a mockery out of marriage. I just don’t understand why Jm J. Bullock doesn’t have that same right.

Of course the marriage debate was not what I meant to blog about either. I meant to talk about the fact that I was nervous that my job might be on the line for a belief that I have. And I didn’t like it.

Even if I don’t get fired, which I don’t think I will, I am still faced with working for a person with whom I don’t agree. In all fairness he instituted the policy to cover domestic partnerships so he hasn’t done anything wrong. He merely expressed his opinion. And he has every right to believe what he believes, just as I do.

But I got a taste of what it must be like to have someone else in charge of your pursuit of happiness and that really sucked.

Tagged as: discrimination, marriage