02-26-2021, 05:45 PM
My brain hurts reading this.
As I was explaining to Anti Federalist, any interpretation of an amended Civil Rights Act is to look at how the current CRA is interpreted. It's not a thing of "Well I didn't discriminate against you for being black because I perceive you as being white even though you told me you were black." it's "I didn't discriminate against you for being black because I fired you for being repetitively tardy and that has nothing to do with you being black." Certainly if an employee is in the closet and there's no evidence that he informed his boss that he was gay, then that would be a pretty solid defense against a CRA claim. But the has EVERYTHING to do with the REASON the employee was fired and not some twisted interpretation of what the language you are referencing. If I have a legitimate reason for firing you and I never give any indication that I fired you for anything other than that reason and I fire other people that don't fit your protected class for the same reason then I have a rock solid CRA defense. If, on the other hand, I only fire gay people, or black people, or women, or some other protected class for that same reason, then I have a problem. Look at the other language in the definitions section of the act.
14) LGBTQ people often face discrimination when seeking to rent or purchase housing, as well as in every other aspect of obtaining and maintaining housing. LGBTQ people in same-sex relationships are often discriminated against when two names associated with one gender appear on a housing application, and transgender people often encounter discrimination when credit checks or inquiries reveal a former name.
^That is what the "perceived" language is talking about. Two people could be best friends, or it could be a man and a woman with the feminine or masculine names. Think "The Boy Named Sue" song by Johnny Cash. (In college I knew a young man named Wanda that was dating a young lady named Wanda). Someone seeing such an application might perceive this was a gay couple when it wasn't.
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