YES!

[fierceawakening]

From an Equality Virginia newsletter thing today:
Mark today on your calendars as a day that we made history. For the first time, a bill that would protect Virginia's gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender state employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity passed one house of the Virginia legislature.

Comments

[candidevoltaire]

Awesome! Maybe Virginia will be getting reasonable about the time I'm leaving it forever. (It's a shame that the bill will be defeated in the other house.)

[fierceawakening]

I really hope it will pass both, but... who knows.

[sentso]

Wow. Efing cool.

[fierceawakening]

I know!

[anonymous]

As a liberal and a Virginian, I support the non-discrimination and general intent of this bill. But, as a skeptic and a cynic, I find that there is a potential for abuse. This is a bill by bureaucrats for bureaucrats, it makes the firing of public servants more difficult. Again, I'm no social conservative, but I don't want my fellow Virginians paying for public workers who are past retirement age, perform obsolete tasks, but refuse to retire and, by law, cannot be laid off. Like I said, I'm skeptical about gov't.

On the other hand, this should not even be an issue. Of course there should be no discrimination taking place within the state gov't. But, like Mason argued, sometimes it's better to have rights explicitly stated and not merely implied.

- Konservo